Producer Menahem Golan actually wanted Kathleen Turner, who was coming off the hit film Romancing the Stone (1984), to star in this film. He said, "I want that Stone woman," and Sharon Stone was hired by mistake.
The movie was filmed concurrently with its sequel, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986). Due to his film's lukewarm box office returns, the sequel went straight to video in most countries
Sharon Stone once remarked that her contribution to this film and its sequel, which was shot at the same time, consisted of "a bad hairdo running through the jungle". Her difficulties making the movies, along with the collapse of her first marriage, convinced her to work on Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987). She wanted to have some fun after a difficult period in her life. She said, "Hanging out with a gang of comedians, it was the best therapy".