Sean Penn was attached to this project for six years before the financing for the picture was secured.
The airport interior scenes were filmed at the Oakland International Airport in Oakland, California, whose design remains similar to airports of the 1970s.
This was originally conceived as a fictitious story but, whilst doing research, the writers discovered something very similar had occurred, so decided to let that influence their script.
Star Sean Penn said he enjoyed seeing the furniture store set demolished. This was because his character of Samuel Bicke had not enjoyed his time there.