Despite the movie having in its cast well-known actors such as Dan Aykroyd, Dave Foley, Matt Frewer, and Dave Thomas, for some reason distributor TVA Films chose not to publicize this, and instead in its limited marketing campaign decided to focus on the cast members who were not famous. This has been used as one explanation as to why the movie was a box office flop when released to theaters.
Meghan Heffern and Pamela Parker's debut.
Despite getting a wider than average release to Canadian theaters, the movie was a huge box office failure. In 2005, writer/director Dave Thomas, testifying to Canadian politicians at the House of Commons in Ottawa, blamed the failure of the movie because of TVA Films' mishandling of the marketing campaign. Thomas said TVA Films only spent $250,000 on television advertisements, which would only buy about 20 spots. "$250,000 for a television campaign for a broad-based commercial movie is nothing. You might as well save the money. You might as well put it in bonds and give it to your children," Thomas said. He also said that when research house Decima surveyed Canadians, 90% had not even heard of the movie.