[5][6] This film's timeline begins with the death of Pope John Paul I on September 28, 1978, and then flashes back to Karol Wojtyła as a young man growing up decades earlier in Wadowice, Poland.

Once Karol Wojtyła was installed as Pope, executive producer Alvin Cooperman made his decision to create the film project,[7] and with the assistance of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York,[6] sought Vatican approval and cooperation.

[3] In not being a true documentary film, the depiction of the life of Karol Wojtyła was not "tied to exact factual details",[3] and included the addition "theatrical flourishes and appropriate emotional atmosphere",[3] but still remained "a sound and vivid dramatization"[3] reflecting the biographical record of a man whose "background had plenty of high drama in it without making it up".

[3] The Courier in noting that lead Albert Finney was Protestant, both director Herbert Wise and writer Christopher Knopf were Jewish, and cinematographer Tony Imi was Roman Catholic, wrote that the film was successful as "a compelling story about a man, rather than a religious tract about a pontiff.

"[4] Producer Alvin Cooperman spoke toward the difficulties extant in writing about a living exalted person, and how he worked to dispel preconceptions that he was offering either a documentary or a "hallowed portrait" of (then-incumbent) John Paul II.