 The film was deliberately cast with actors who were not true box-office stars, including many Japanese amateurs, in order to place the emphasis on the story rather than the actors who were in it.Several members of the cast had themselves served in World War II.Veteran 20th Century Fox executive Darryl F. Zanuck, who had earlier produced "The Longest Day" (1962), wanted to create an epic that depicted what "really happened on December 7, 1941", with a "revisionist's approach".