Nicolas Cage's brother Marc, who is a pastor, is a big fan of the novel and asked Cage to star in the movie as favor to him.
Because of the general critical panning and the box office failure this movie was, the producers decided to finance the sequel in an Indiegogo campaign titled simply as "Help us make Left Behind 2". The campaign received 80,699.00 USD out of the half a million asked. The last update of the project was in May 7, 2015.
Tia Mowry was previously attached to the film in the role of Shasta, but was later replaced by singer Jordin Sparks
Although Lea Thompson's and Nicholas Cage's characters are married in the film, the two never share a scene together.
Left Behind authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins along with their families were given an advanced screening of a rough cut of the movie on January 31, 2014. Afterwards, LaHaye was quoted as saying, "It is the best movie I have ever seen on the rapture." Jenkins was quoted, "I believe it does justice to the novel and will renew interest in the entire series."