Jonathan Slavin's first movie role.
As he was only known to be a character actor from the Father of the Bride films, Jurassic Park, and Oz at the time the studio didn't want B.D. Wong to headline the film because while he was a familiar movie presence he had never been the lead in a movie. Wong was willing to accept the role because he was willing to work with the low budget to get his first starting role. The studio only agreed to cast him when Bronson Pinchot agreed to play Roy because Pinchot was a lead in the sitcom Perfect Strangers as well as being noted for Step by Step and appearing in Beverly Hills Cop. They felt his presence was strong enough as a lead to attract moviegoers and they then agreed to cast Wong as Morgan Brinway.
According to a November 1995 article this movie was supposed to begin filming during the summer of 1996. Actual filming dates are unknown but it was ultimately given a very limited release in January 1998 which is a dump month usually when Hollywood releases films they aren't confident will be hits. The reason for the delayed release was because production company The Bubble Factory had released For Richer or Poorer (1997) in December 1997, which flopped at the box office and they wanted to see if a limited release would result in this film hopefully finding a larger audience as word of mouth grew. Unfortunately the film did so badly in limited release that it went out of theaters very quickly. But considering it's very low budget it was not a huge loss for the studio.
Bronson Pinchot didn't really like the script finding his character to be a dull family friendly version of Bill Murray's character Carl Spackler in Caddyshack (1980). However he left his one season of appearing in Step by Step (1991) to appear in the short lived program Meego (1997) cancelled after less than one season. Due to both short lived experiences he ultimately was forced to do the movie due to his financial hardship at the time.
Comedienne and author Kat Timpf's favorite childhood film, as revealed on Gutfeld! in March 2023.