The film is a reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa's Entre le ciel et l'enfer (1963), which was in turn based on the novel "King's Ransom" by Evan Hunter, published in 1959 under his pen name "Ed McBain."
Fifth collaboration between Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, after Mo' Better Blues (1990), Malcolm X (1992), He Got Game (1998), and Inside Man : L'Homme de l'intérieur (2006).
Jeffrey Wright not only plays Elijah Wright's father in the movie, the actors are real-life father and son.
The movie's scheduled premiere at Cannes, May 19, 2025, is exactly 36 years after the Cannes premiere of Spike Lee's movie Do the Right Thing (1989). May 19 is also the birthday of Malcolm X, who Denzel Washington played in Lee's Malcolm X (1992).