The movie was filmed between 1970 and 1976, with editing continuing into the 1980s. When he died in October 1985, Welles left behind nearly 100 hours of footage and a work print consisting of assemblies and a few edited scenes.
In May of 2015, directors Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach announced that they were running a campaign to raise $2 million to complete the post production and release the film.
John Huston's son, Danny Huston, looped over some of his father's dialogue in the 2018 post-production for the film's final release by Netflix.
Three small portions of the film have been released over the years and can most prominently be seen in the Orson Welles documentary "Orson Welles: The One-Man Band (1995)."
Peter Bogdanovich announced in an interview session at the 2017 TCM Classic Film Festival that a breakthrough in securing the original filmed material had been achieved and that he was working on completing the film, fulfilling (hopefully) a promise he made to Orson Welles to complete the film.