Bouli Lanners was originally supposed to play Albert Maillard, but he had to withdraw from the project because he was overworked.
The movie is dedicated to Alain de Greef and Marcel Gotlib; the latter was a star of comic books, and Albert Dupontel was a huge fan of his work.
The scheme about the dead WWI soldiers and funeral business or swindle was already told in Bertrand Tavernier's Life and Nothing But (1989).
Jean-Jacques Beineix had previously announced his intention to write and direct an adaptation of Pierre Lemaitre's novel but this never came to fruition.