To cut costs, most of the score was material that had been composed by Jerry Goldsmith for the first movie, King Solomon's Mines (1985). Just a half-hour of original music was written, by Michael Linn.
James Earl Jones later admitted that he only did the movie for the money, and for the chance to go to Africa.
Gary Nelson recalled in the documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014) that when he first screened the film for Menahem Golan, Golan was baffled by it. It turns out that he mistook it for another Cannon film, Invaders from Mars (1986). Golan never admitted his mistake. He later told Nelson that the film was unreleasable. Nelson replied that he walked down a hall decorated with posters for films that were, in his opinion, unreleasable.
Though passed by the BBFC for theatrical exhibition and having publicity materials made, the film largely bypassed UK cinemas (playing mostly in Cannon's own cinema chain), and was thus released on home video shortly after.