In a 2023 interview with Fincher Fanatic, David Prior spoke about getting the film made with some help from people he'd connected with during his time making DVD making-of documentaries: "I'm sure the natural assumption is that I was only able to make the film by cashing in a lot of favors. There was some of that, but not as much as you might think. I did have a good deal of help from a few important people. The DP, Brian Hoodenpyle, and his crew were people I've used on a lot of the DVD stuff. Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., who I'd worked with on Alien La résurrection (1997) as well as La chambre forte (2002), generously donated the dummy of Jake Gyllenhaal that the main character pulls down the stairs. Peter Mavromates, David Fincher's post production supervisor, was a great help in securing a reasonably affordable digital intermediate, and the people at Technicolor were very accommodating. But everything was bought and paid for by me personally. And often enough the only person I could afford was me, which is one of the reasons I did so much of it myself - editing, production design, sound design, a few VFX shots, etc. I planned the shoot, (rewriting, doing the previsualization) while I was working on Blade 2 (2002) and Panic Room, and then shot it between DVD jobs over the next couple of years. The post production alone took nearly two years."