Greta Scacchi's breakthrough role in Heat and Dust (1983) earned her a reputation for being relaxed about on-screen nudity. She had stripped down for scenes in Presumed Innocent (1990) and White Mischief (1987), among others, until she reached the edge of her tolerance with this movie. "There I was, in the missionary position," she would later say, "with the fourth famous actor in six months on top of me--Harrison Ford, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jimmy Smits, now Tom Berenger--and I'm thinking, 'I just can't do this anymore'."
The car crash was filmed using a custom-built "gun" with a compressed-gas thrust of 1,400 pounds, which sent a Mercedes 560SL sailing 200 feet off a cliff before it fell more than 500 feet. Recording the action were six cameras, several manned by rope-secured technicians experienced in climbing rock faces to get into pivotal positions. Camera crews lower down the cliff had to be put in place with their equipment by a heavy-duty helicopter capable of lifting 2,000 lbs.
Publicity for the picture, including the review in the show-business trade paper "Variety", often mistakenly attributed this 1991 movie as being the first Hollywood production directed by German director Wolfgang Petersen, but this is not the case; Petersen had directed around six years earlier Enemy Mine (1985) for 20th Century-Fox, although it was filmed almost entirely in Germany.
"The Plastic Nightmare", the novel by Richard Neely upon which this film is based, was published in 1969.