Chalbaud spent time choosing the music over a two month period he was stuck at home with a broken leg, which gave him the opportunity to carefully select which songs he needed. In an attempt to counter the poor quality of sound recording in Venezuela, a French sound engineer was brought on board, but in the 1980s "El País" did say that the film "suffers from bad sound" despite this. In the 1960s, Chalbaud took stories from girls at El Canario, a brothel he visited when working in television, to write into the first version of "El Pez que Fuma", a play that he premiered with El Nuevo Grupo in 1968. The film took several of the original theatre cast to reprise their roles. Chalbaud co-wrote the film with Cabrujas, saying the process was that he would write a scene, Cabrujas would write another, and sometimes they would write one at the same time. The auteur added that he would not change anything about the film. The film was also selected as the Venezuelan entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 50th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. The film had begun life as a play, and returned to the stage in 2017 for a tour between the Teatro Teresa Carreño, Maracay Opera House, and National Theatre of Venezuela in a production directed by Ibrahim Guerra. The defining notes of the production were the addition of vaudeville and expansion of certain characters, and it was redeveloped for the stage in order to develop a greater Venezuelan theatre aesthetic. A remake of the film was announced in 2018. It will be directed by Jorge Souki and star Mimí Lazo, also producer, as La Garza. Chalbaud, who informed the media of these plans, has said that Lazo, who had been in the original, "has wanted to play the role for forty years". He also said that the remake may be released within a few years. There had previously been a Spanish remake to be set in Barcelona's "chinatown" in the works, but in 2016 Chalbaud revoked permission because he wasn't convinced of its quality even though offered an "astronomical" amount of money.