This film reunites director Charles Jarrott with several people he worked with in other films at other studios; he had previously directed Geneviève Bujold in Universal's "Anne of the Thousand Days", which had earned them Academy Award nominations. The film's theme song, "Half of Me", had lyrics by Hal David, who also wrote the lyrics to songs to the 1973 Columbia Pictures movie musical "Lost Horizon" and whose brother Mack David did the same for Walt Disney's 1950 animated feature "Cinderella". Meanwhile, both Gould and Bujold were making their first film for Disney, as were Ricky Schroder and Dana Elcar who both appeared in "The Champ", which came out on April 4, shortly before this film started shooting on April 22, 1979. Elcar would also appear in Jarrott's next film, "Condorman", another Disney release the following year. Schroder, for whom this was also his first film that wasn't a remake of an earlier film, turned nine years old on April 13, exactly nine days between the two aforementioned dates in either direction.