This was the last film ever released by Orion Pictures.
Annually, the town of Clifden, Connemara, Ireland flies the Mexican flag, in honor of John Riley, born in the town, and the men of the San Patricio's Battalion.
Started production in 1997 under Orion Pictures. During production, Orion was bought by MGM. After considering to send it straight-to-video, MGM ultimately gave the film a limited theatrical release in 1999 thanks to an Internet campaign launched by fans of Tom Berenger. In a 1999 interview, Berenger believed that MGM wanted to bury the film because they had inherited it from Orion and only wanted to focus on distributing its in-house slate.
The film took 30 years for the film to finally get made. The script was originally written in the late-1960s, and was going to be directed by John Huston, but no studio wanted to finance it due to fears that the subject matter would be perceived by the public as "anti-American." Huston died in 1987, and writer Milton S. Gelman would pass away three years later. The film finally got funding in 1997, with Lance Hool, a protege of Huston's, in the director's chair.
John Riley was born Sean O'Raghailligh in Clifden Co. Galway c.1817/18 an Irish artilleryman of the British Army who arrived in Canada in 1843. Whether he was still in service of the British Army at the time of his arrival in North America is unclear, but either way, it is likely that he deserted, as the British Army's term of service for enlisted men at the time was life. In September 1845, he joined the 5th U.S. Infantry Regiment in Michigan, from which he and others deserted in Matamoros in 1846, receiving the rank of Lieutenant in the Mexican Army. After his conviction and branding, he rejoined Mexican forces, growing his hair to conceal his scar, and retired from service in Veracruz on medical grounds (suffering from yellow fever), with the rank of Major and retirement pay of eight hundred dollars in 1850. John Patrick Riley then disappears from history.