In absolute terms, this movie made the largest financial loss of any movie to date, with a budget of $100 million and a total US gross of $4.41 million (loss of $95.59 million) and a lifetime worldwide gross of $7,103,973 for a total loss of $92,896,027
Eddie Murphy poked fun at himself in an interview with Barbara Walters, saying: "I know the two or three people that liked this movie."
The workprint version of the film ran nearly three hours, and Oscar-winning editor Alan Heim was brought in to try and fix the film. After viewing the available footage, he determined that a large portion of the film needed to be reshot, and whole new scenes added including an opening and closing sequence, and introductory sequences for both Pluto and Dina. Eddie Murphy ultimately financed many of the reshoots while the film languished in post-production, writing and directing many of the new scenes himself.
The original script was written in 1985. A dozen other writers wrote treatments of it, but Neil Cuthbert was the only one credited.