Director and co-writer Roland Emmerich said of the production:I want to make entertaining movies for a broad audience.

[1] In order to shoot the film in English, Emmerich recruited several of his actors from an American Military base in Germany.

Despite mainly negative reviews the film was able to recoup its budget in Germany alone and generated further profits from foreign sales.

[1] Joey was subsequently released as a 2 disc DVD set featuring the original 98 minute version along with the edited North American cut.

In 2016, Kino Lorber has announced a Blu-ray with a new high definition transfer and newly produced special features.