Director Brad Peyton has cited Titanfall (2014) as an inspiration for the film.
Despite receiving generally unfavourable reviews from critics, the film performed well on Netflix, entering the platform's Top 10 in 93 countries.
At 3:44, while they are searching for Casca, the scanner briefly shows "Reticulating Splines". This is an Easter egg referencing a gag that originated in SimCity 2000 (1993) and later reappeared across numerous Maxis titles, notably The Sims (2000).
In the opening shots of a futuristic Los Angeles, several rotating structures that evoke the form of a DNA helix can be seen. They are genuine vertical-axis wind turbines, known as Darrieus turbines, employed to capture wind energy.
Jennifer Lopez, who portrayed Atlas Shepherd, revealed in an interview that she burst into tears upon first reading the script.
The film was principally filmed at a studio in Los Angeles, California, and includes location footage of Shanghai, China, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
The film's production finished in roughly three months, by 19 November 2022.
The emergency respirators that appear repeatedly in the film are worn around the user's neck and do not employ a cannula (tube) to supply oxygen to the nose or mouth. They likely represent a type of 'ECMO' — extracorporeal membrane oxygenation — a medical technique that introduces oxygen directly into the bloodstream, bypassing respiratory organs such as the lungs.
Principal photography commenced on 26 August 2022, with filming taking place in Los Angeles and New Zealand.
