The original book does not give the specific location of the town, and it has always maintained a sense of mystery . The title in the book is "Undiscovered Zone". Although the package that John mailed to him in the movie had the address "Sherwood, Illinois", it was fabricated from the two addresses of Illinois in the United States and Sherwood in Nottingham, England. It does not exist in reality. It is worth mentioning that John's full name appeared on this package: John-Cheese. The role of Amy Sullivan in the movie is a fusion of the two characters from the original book. When director Koscarelli bought a book on Amazon.com, the recommendation column on the page told him "You will also like the book "John Dies At The End"." After watching the pre-reading part, Xcarelli felt that this story should be made into a movie. This is how the production plan for this film was born. As early as 2001, the original work first appeared in the form of online novels. In 2004, David Wang compiled the novels into manuscripts, and it was not published in print until 2007.
Soon after the novel was officially published, Xcarelli bought the rights to its film adaptation. Koscarelli praised David Wang for "having an endless stream of creativity and imagination, and Douglas Adams and Stephen King are combined in him." The crew began filming in Southern California in October 2010, and the post-production of the film began in January 2011, and it was planned to be released in 2013 as early as possible. Since 2012, the film has been screened in major independent film festivals. In 2012, the sundance film festival , San Francisco International Film Festival , Toronto International Film Festival , Sitges Film Festival in Spain, Paris International Fantasy Film Festival and Madepe, Argentina Appeared at the Lata Film Festival. For this film, Xcarelli was nominated for the 2012 Chicago International Film Festival Golden Victor Hugo Award Midnight Competition. The film ranked third in the Midnight Madness of the Audience Choice Awards at the Toronto International Film Festival. On December 27, 2012, the film was launched on the Video on demand website, and viewers can watch the film first through the online platform. This film is the first work of director Koscarelli since 2002's "The King of Ghosts". Paul Giamatti is also the executive producer of the film in addition to the role of Aini Brandstone. This is the film debut of American actor Chas Williamson who plays David. He has only acted in a few short films before. When the agent called and told him to get the role of David, Williamson, who was driving on the road, was overwhelmed with excitement. At that time, he had to park the car to the side of the road to calm his mood. The lead actor Rob Meyers had no contact with the original before the audition. Xcarelli expressed interest in the sequel to the original book "This book is full of spiders: Seriously, man, don't touch it", but there is no clear production plan yet.
