To date the film remains officially unreleased. According to some sources Tatum O'Neal's father Ryan O'Neal was so dissatisfied with the completed production that he purchased the rights to the film in order to prevent its distribution. Other reports indicate the film was shelved due to a legal/financial dispute between the production company and the completion guarantor.
Because of the union disputes which resulted in producer Antony I. Ginnane moving the production of Treasure of the Yankee Zephyr (1981) from Australia to New Zealand, Ginnane made four of his next five pictures there, they being Prisoners (1983), Mesmerized (1985), Strange Behavior (1981), and Second Time Lucky (1984).