Tom DiCillo took a hammer to the set created for Johnny's apartment to make it look as dilapidated as he wanted. Near the end of filming, the fire department ordered them to leave the building, as it was too unsafe to go inside.
A few weeks into filming, Tom DiCillo fired the original director of photography after finding all of the footage shot to be worthless. When confronted with this, DiCillo claims the DP confessed to deliberately sabotaging the film due to jealosy.