 Dennis Hopper came back from shooting in South America with more  than 40 hours worth of footage. His final cut, after more than a  year of editing (his editing antics were documented in a documentary  called "The American Dreamer"), was incomprehensible to many of the  studio heads. This was the last film that Hopper directed until  1980s Out of the Blue, which he took over directing after that  films original director left production.