When Jeffery Katzenberg was the CEO of Disney, he viewed the film and loved it and offered Mike Binder practically anything since Sony was also making a strong pitch to Binder. Binder accepted Katzenberg's offer and got a three picture deal with the studio which continued with another film based on Binder's youth, Indian Summer which was filming when this film was released.
The film was based on the personal experiences of Writer/Director Mike Binder when he was growing up in Detroit.
Composer Peter Himmelman was suggested to write the music for the film by Stephen Baldwin after telling Mike Binder about a few songs he had written and liked.
The Bridge that is referred to in the film's title is The Ambassador Bridge that connects Michigan and Canada. The bridge was a part of Writer-Director Mike Binder's teenage youth growing up crossing it numerous times.
At the end of the film, when Mort is seen walking along the Detroit River, with the sun just coming up, since it was dawn, he is on the left hand side of the bridge, which goes from left to right into Canada, and the Canadian shore is seen on the right. Now one might assume this to be an error, for Canada is generally north of the United States, and since the sun rises in the east, the right hand side as one looks towards the sun would be south, but in fact, the Ambassador Bridge does actually travel north to south from Detroit into Windsor, and thus, Windsor is actually south of Detroit, thus the shot is consistent.