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 - A Ressurreição (1997) as well as O Quarto do Pânico (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 II: O Caçador de Vampiros (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."