Director James Merendino posted to Facebook about his memories of when Brad Renfro would stay at his home as an adult to break his addiction to heroin. In the post, Merendino wrote that Renfro "had been injecting heroin at 12 years old." This would have been around the time he was either making or had already finished this film.
The opening credits feature the track 'My Great Escape' by Marc Cohn. A prelude is also heard later in the movie. However, this track was not released on any medium other than the movie itself.
Most of movie was filmed in Stillwater, Minnesota.
The first movie that Brad Renfro and Bruce Davison starred in together. The second movie is Apt Pupil (1998) they play son and father.
Filmed in the summer of 1994, believe it or not but Brad Renfro had only just turned 12 in July of that year and was only 1 year older than Joseph Mazzello but he was significantly bigger, a mismatch that fits the script perfectly.