The film is based on real-life events. The picture's under-the-title tagline stated "Based on a true story".

According to TV Guide, "In October 1972 an account written by Leonard Greenwood appeared in the Los Angeles Times. It told of a Peruvian engineer whose son had been kidnapped by a band of Indians and of the man's successful search to locate the child. Screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg saw the news item and took it to producer-director John Boorman". The result was this movie.

According to director John Boorman's book "Money Into Light - The Emerald Forest: A Diary" (1985), Boorman's initial choice for the part of the son Tomme was C. Thomas Howell. When Howell was unavailable, John decided to use his own son Charley Boorman for the part.

Due to the fact that many of the native South American actors wear very little and many of their women appear topless in the picture, reportedly, filming each day started with the non-South American cast and crew personnel performing naked aerobic exercising.

The film was "released with native language dialogue" and "became the first feature ever made for U.S. markets in a principal language other than English" according to the book "Picture This!: A Guide to Over 300 Environmentally, Socially, and Politically Relevant Films and Videos" (1992) by Sky Hiatt.

Charley Boorman, who plays Powers Boothe's son Tommy, is the son of director John Boorman.

The movie's opening prologue states: "This film was made in the Rain Forest of the Amazon and is based on real events and actual characters".

Powers Boothe almost drowned during the shooting of one sequence where Charley Boorman was assisting Boothe cross a river. Boorman's pleas for assistance were initially interpreted by distant crew personnel as being part of his performance.

The tribe name given to Tommy Markham (Charley Boorman) was "Tomme", while the tribal dream name he had for his real father Bill Markham (Powers Boothe) was "Daddé".

First starring role of Charley Boorman, son of director John Boorman, who had previously had small roles in the director's previous films Excalibur (1981) and Deliverance (1972), and his later ones, such as Hope and Glory (1987) and Beyond Rangoon (1995).

The names of the indigenous South American tribes were "The Fierce People" and "The Invisible People." There is a reference to a former tribe named "The Bat People." The members of "The Invisible Tribe" refer to the dam builders as "The Termite People."

According to the book "Picture This!: A Guide to Over 300 Environmentally, Socially, and Politically Relevant Films and Videos" (1992) by Sky Hiatt, "John Boorman lugged a production crew and truckloads of equipment where no equipment had gone before to film on location in the Amazon basin".

The name of the real person that Tomme / Tommy Markham (Charley Boorman) was based on was "Ezequiel".

Charley Boorman broke the same toe four times during production. After the lengthy shoot, during which he had spent virtually the entire time barefoot, his party trick was to light a match on his bare feet.

The picture was screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1985.

According to show-business trade paper "Variety", the movie is "based on an uncredited true story about a Peruvian whose son disappeared in the jungles of Brazil".

The climate during the filming of the picture was regularly hot, humid, rainy and uncomfortable. Director John Boorman has said that the wet inclement weather in Belém in Pará, Brazil was "a daily torrential downpour".

Many posters for the film featured a long blurb that read: "What kind of man would return year after year for ten years to rescue a missing boy from the most savage jungle in the world? His father. 'The Emerald Forest'. Based on a true story."

Average Shot Length = ~8.7 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~8.4 seconds.

According to Hal Erickson at the website 'Allmovie', the film "...is based on a true story, as related by Los Angeles Times correspondent Leonard Greenwood".

The film's first title card is not seen in the movie until about the ten minute mark.

This was the fourth and final collaboration between director John Boorman and Rospo Pallenberg, the others being Deliverance (1972), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and Excalibur (1981).

The film was made and released about thirteen years after is source original newspaper article had first been published.

The amount of time that it took for father Bill Markham (Powers Boothe) to find his son Tommy Markham (Charley Boorman) in the Amazonian rainforest in Brazil was ten years.

Actor Powers Boothe previously co-starred in Southern Comfort (1981), a picture that has often been likened to Deliverance (1972). Boothe then later starred in The Emerald Forest (1985), its director John Boorman had directed Deliverance (1972).

The character of Tommy Markham was played by two actors, William Rodriguez as the young boy Tommy, and Charley Boorman as the older tribal Tomme.

The Australian DVD sleeve notes describe the picture as a "true-life Tarzan saga".

This movie was first released in the same year that John Boorman directed the television short Journey Into Light (1985), which had a very similar title to Boorman's book "Money Into Light: The Emerald Forest: A Diary" (1985) which was about the making of this picture.

The name of the hydro-electric dam construction company was the "Amazco Corporation".

The film's closing epilogue states: "The Rain Forests of the Amazon are disappearing at the rate of 5,000 Acres per day. For million Indians once lived there. 120,000 remain. A few tribes have never had contact with the outside world. They still know what we have forgotten."