Trivia

Studio executives were so sure this film would flop that Robert Zemeckis was pre-emptively fired from directing Cocoon (1985). It turned out to be such a success that Zemeckis was able to go forward on his own project, Back to the Future (1985).

This was the only produced screenplay for writer Diane Thomas. She had been working as a waitress in Malibu when producer/star Michael Douglas optioned her script for $250,000, allowing her to quit her job. Sadly, Thomas died in a car accident, while working on a new movie project with Steven Spielberg the following year, about seven weeks before the opening of this film's sequel, The Jewel of the Nile (1985). She was a passenger while her boyfriend was driving a Porsche that Douglas had bought for her as a thank you gift. The Jewel of the Nile (1985) was dedicated "In Memory of" Thomas.

Mary Ellen Trainor who plays Elaine, Joan's sister, was also one of the writers.

This film marked the beginning of director Robert Zemeckis's partnership with composer Alan Silvestri. Ever since then, Silvestri has composed the music for every Zemeckis-directed film.

Though described by some film critics as a "rip-off" of 1981's Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), the original screenplay had actually been written five years earlier around 1979.

Robert Zemeckis: [ticking clock] panning across part of a room with a loudly ticking clock to a ringing phone (also found in Back to the Future (1985) and Amazing Stories (1985) "Go to the Head of the Class").

Robert Zemeckis: [citation] At the beginning of the movie, when Joan Wilder has finished the book, she prepares "dinner" for her cat. This scene resembles a well-known commercial for cat-food.