Early in filming, producer Menahem Golan said to numerous people, that he believed that Brooke Shields would win an Oscar for her role.
MGM was the one who invested and put up all of the money for this movie's advertising and post-production. This was also the last The Cannon Group, Inc. movie with which they were involved, calling it "Dry as the Sahara desert...it was awful."
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's son went missing while rallying through the Sahara around this time, which gave this movie some much needed publicity.
Early press on this movie was so bad, that the movie company halted it from release in almost every market east of the Mississippi River.
This movie was described as Menahem Golan's attempt to make Lawrence of Arabia (1962), with The Blue Lagoon (1980), and The Great Race (1965) thrown in.