According to show-business trade paper 'Variety', the "pic was shot mostly in Ukraine, with some days in Moscow, using a fake script to get the necessary permits".
Fifth cinema movie collaboration of actor Max Riemelt and director Dennis Gansel. Riemelt starred in every one of Gansel's feature films since Girls on Top (2001) with the other titles being The Wave (2008), Before the Fall (2004), and We Are the Night (2010). The first cinema movie of Gansel that does not feature Riemelt was Mechanic: Resurrection (2016).
Writer-director Dennis Gansel has said that Sydney Pollack's earlier espionage movie Three Days of the Condor (1975) was a significant influence on him for the making of this movie.
This cinema movie's opening prologue reads: "The story of the following film and the events and characters depicted in the film are fictitious".
Final feature film directed by Dennis Gansel for around four years with next Gansel's next being Mechanic: Resurrection (2016).