Screenwriters Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo had creative differences with Disney, causing the film to languish in development hell.

In 1938 Los Angeles, gangsters from Eddie Valentine's gang steal a prototype rocket pack from aviation magnate Howard Hughes.

During their escape from the pursuing police, the getaway driver quickly stops and hides the rocket in a Curtiss JN Jenny biplane cockpit at an airfield.

As the chase continues, stunt pilot Cliff Secord's yellow and black Gee Bee Z monoplane is destroyed, ending his air-racing career.

Film star Neville Sinclair hired Valentine's gang to steal the rocket, and sends his monstrous henchman Lothar to find its location.

Cliff's girlfriend is aspiring actress Jenny Blake, who has a small part in Sinclair's latest film; recent events start driving a wedge in their relationship.

Later, at the airfield diner, Cliff and Peevy are trapped by several Valentine mobsters; they learn about Jenny's date with Sinclair and the actor's involvement in the hunt for the rocket.

The diner patrons overpower the gangsters, but a stray fired bullet punctures the rocket's fuel tank, which Peevy temporarily patches with chewing gum.

Cliff flies to and boards Luxembourg, but during the ensuing showdown, Jenny accidentally starts a fire with a flare gun on the airship's bridge.

[8] Stevens, Bilson, and De Meo began to consider making The Rocketeer as a low-budget film, shot in black-and-white and funded by independent investors.

Their plan was to make the film a complete homage to Republic's Commando Cody rocket man serials, and use a cast largely associated with character actors.

[7] Bilson, De Meo, and Dear kept the comic book's basic plot intact, but fleshed it out to include a Hollywood setting and a climactic battle against a Nazi Zeppelin.

[15] For the female lead of Cliff's girlfriend Jenny, Sherilyn Fenn, Kelly Preston, Diane Lane, and Elizabeth McGovern were considered before Jennifer Connelly was eventually cast.

[16] Campbell and Connelly's working relationship eventually became romantic, which Johnston found to be a technique for method acting that helped with their on-screen chemistry.

[16] Remaining cast members included Tiny Ron Taylor as Lothar, Terry O'Quinn as Howard Hughes, Jon Polito as Otis Bigelow, Ed Lauter as Agent Fitch, Eddie Jones as Malcolm the Mechanic, and Robert Miranda as Spanish Johnny.

[3] An abandoned World War II runway at the Santa Maria, California airport was the set for the fictional Chaplin Air Field.

Aerial coordinator Craig Hosking remarked in an interview, "What makes The Rocketeer so unique was having several one-of-a-kind planes that hadn't flown in years", including a 1916 Standard biplane and a Gee Bee Model Z racer.

[7][Note 2][Note 3] Stevens gave the film's production designer Jim Bissell and his two art directors his entire reference library pertaining to the Rocketeer at that time period, including blueprints for hangars and bleachers, schematics for building the autogyro, photos and drawings of the Bulldog Cafe modeled after an actual 1920s cafe,[19][20] the uniforms for the air circus staff, and contacts for locating the vintage aircraft.

[21] The special effects were designed and created by ILM with Ken Ralston (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Sony Pictures Imageworks founder) serving as the VFX supervisor.

The air circus sequence used sped-up Moviola effects, a combination of live-action and stop-motion animation, and a real aerial display held at Santa Monica intercut with film footage.

[22] The Rocketeer's attack on the Nazi Zeppelin was filmed in four months near Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park in Valencia, California, through pick-ups.

[35] The film opened #4 behind Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, City Slickers and Dying Young and eventually grossed only $46.6 million in US box office, making it a commercial disappointment.

Outside of the United States and Canada, the film was released through Disney's Touchstone Pictures label, in an attempt to attract the teenage audience it did not reach in North America.

[1] The original Art Deco poster, artistically similar to the famous Monument to Yuri Gagarin, was changed because it failed to draw attention to the cast, including James Bond actor Timothy Dalton.

The site's consensus states: "An action-packed, if anachronistic, look back at pulp matinee serials, The Rocketeer may ring hollow with viewers expecting more than simple fun and gee-whiz special effects.

Although Ebert cited the visual effects as being state of the art, he described them "as charmingly direct as those rockets in the Flash Gordon serials—the ones with sparklers hidden inside of them, which were pulled on wires in front of papier-mâché mountains".

Maslin believed that by setting the story in 1938, the filmmakers were more interested in the Art Deco production design and visual effects instead of imbuing the storyline with "inspiration, which may be why it finally feels flat".

[41] Jonathan Rosenbaum of Chicago Reader believed both the editing and the storyline were not well balanced and said The Rocketeer ripped off elements of Indiana Jones and Back to the Future.

From the beginning of the process of making The Rocketeer, creator Dave Stevens and screenwriters Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo envisioned it as the first entry of a trilogy.

The ride incorporates elements such as the jetpack motif, art deco styling, and aviation-themed imagery, paying homage to the film's iconic visual language.