Development Orson Welles first tried to buy the rights to Heller's novel to independently produce and direct it in 1962, but was unsuccessful. He wound up cast in the role of
General Dreedle.
Columbia Pictures purchased the rights to it in 1965 and attempted to develop the film with
Richard Brooks or
Richard Quine as potential directors, while
Jack Lemmon was considered as Captain Yossarian. Heller grew dissatisfied with the two as he believed they were “incapable of pursuing the wildly satirical (and anti-military) point of view of his novel.” The studio subsequently sold the rights to
Martin Ransohoff at
Filmways in 1967, which had already hired Mike Nichols to direct. Nichols originally announced that principal photography would begin in “late 1967-early 1968” in
Yugoslavia and
Italy. However, the project was delayed for several years as Nichols and
John Calley searched for Italian terrain that had not been destroyed by
World War II.
Daily Variety in the period 1967-69 reported that
Andre Previn would score the picture and that Nichols sought to cast
Walter Matthau and
Al Pacino in the movie, but none of them participated in the picture.
Stacy Keach was also cast in the film before departing a month prior to filming.
Filming Nichols eventually decided on
Mexico as the primary shooting location of the film. Production began on January 13, 1969, at an airfield constructed for the film near
Guaymas,
Sonora, on the
Gulf of California. The filmmakers spent $180,000 building a five-mile highway to the site (which previously could only be accessed by boat) and an additional $250,000 for a 6,000-ft. runway; the airfield today is Guaymas airport. After a week of filming, Nichols sent back 200 of the American extras in order to give the base in the film a more isolated atmosphere. Welles filmed his cameo appearance as General Dreedle in eight days. Some filming also took place at the
Palazzo Farnese and the Palazzo Navona in
Rome. Production concluded in August 1969 after a final two months of interior filming in
Hollywood.
Adaptation The adaptation changed the book's plot. Several
story arcs are left out, and many characters in the movie speak dialogue and experience events of other characters in the book. Despite the changes in the screenplay, Heller approved of the film, according to a commentary by Nichols and
Steven Soderbergh included on a
DVD release. The pacing of the novel
Catch-22 is frenetic, its tenor intellectual, and its tone largely
absurdist, interspersed with brief moments of gritty, almost horrific, realism. The novel did not follow a normal chronological progression; rather, it was told as a series of different and often (seemingly, until later) unrelated events, most from the point of view of the central character Yossarian. The film simplified the plot, but it preserved the frenetic pacing, intellectual tenor and realistic tone of the novel.
Aircraft as of 2024. Paramount assigned a $17 million budget to the production and planned to film key flying scenes for six weeks, but the aerial sequences required six months of camera work, resulting in the bombers flying about 1,500 hours. They appear on screen for approximately 10 minutes.
Catch-22 is renowned for its role in saving the
B-25 Mitchell aircraft from possible extinction. The film's budget accommodated 17 flyable B-25 Mitchells, and one hulk was acquired in Mexico, and flown with landing gear down to the
Guaymas,
Sonora,
Mexico filming location. The aircraft was burned and destroyed in the crash landing scene. The wreck was then buried in the ground by the runway, where it remains. For the film, prop upper turrets were installed, and to represent different models, several aircraft had turrets installed behind the wings representing early (B-25C/D type) aircraft. Many of the "Tallmantz Air Force fleet" went on to careers in films and television, before being sold as surplus. Fifteen of the 18 bombers remain intact, including one displayed at the
Smithsonian Institution's
National Air and Space Museum.
Death on the set Second unit director John Jordan refused to wear a harness during a bomber scene and fell out of the open tail turret into the
Pacific Ocean to his death. ==Release==