Schneer said he and Harryhausen chose to do another Sinbad movie as they "felt it was time to go back to the Arabian Nights, since no one else has been dealing with it and we had a great success with it in the late fifties. We felt there was a new audience that was ready for it. We knew of no other producers who were considering this type of material, largely because they probably didn’t know how to handle it on a basis where it became economically viable." Harryhausen did a dozen master sketches which, Schneer said "we felt would be intriguing and interesting and characteristic of the period." They then hired Brian Clemens to do a screenplay based on the sketches. Harryhausen was given a co producer credit in this film to reflect his greater involvement in the writing, editing and casting process.