 It was the first American film to be shot on location in Nigeria.The film is dedicated to the memory of Chief Hubert Ogunde, who helped recruit 150 extras for the road-digging scenes but died in 1990 before the film's completion.The film did not do well in box office in the US release, as Avenue Pictures, the film's U.S. distribution company, went bankrupt before the release date and "there was no money to release the film", according to the film's producer Michael Fitzgerald, in an interview conducted for Criterion Collection's home video release.