The film was produced by MTV Films and was released on July 16, 1999. Speaking of his partnership with MTV for "The Wood", Famuyiwa states, "Films had the best concept and could deal with it better because it was young, had the music and they wanted to make a film with predominantly African-American characters." "The Wood" was produced for an estimated cost of $6 million and went on to gross over $25 million at the box office in the United States alone.