The title refers to a provision in all military service contracts that says a service member can be involuntarily extended beyond their discharge (from active duty) date, and at times beyond their final discharge from service date, according to the needs of the service.
The younger brother of co-writer and director Kimberly Peirce served in the military after 9/11. She IM'd him regularly from the day he landed in Iraq and learned what his everyday life was like. This gave her a window into the young men signing up, their training and aspirations, their experiences in Iraq, and what happened when they came home.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt dislocated his right shoulder while filming boxing with mats wrapped around his arms. The shoot stopped for two weeks during which the writers worked on the script.
A scene was filmed with Maggie Siff as an assistant to Senator Orton Worrell meeting Brandon in the senator's office. The scene was deleted from the final film.