a cast that included Christopher Plummer, Donald Pleasence, Barbara De Rossi, and Yorgo Voyagis. Squitieri re-wrote the script, setting it in the near future of 1996 Venice and hired a number of comic book artists to storyboard the film. Caminito found the story board to be "too baroque" and that it would be too expensive to film. Squitieri refused to change his script and had been arguing with Kinski. As Caminito felt they could not lose Kinski on the film, Caminito terminated the contract with Squitieri and paid him the agreed sum before the director had shot any of the film yet. This then led to Mario Caiano who had worked with Kinski in the past on films such as "The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe". In mid-1986, Caiano completed casting on the film and Caminto re-wrote the script to make it match the films new reduced budget. Cozzi later stated that several characters and scenes were scrapped in the new re-write of the film.