Anne Hathaway's role in the original movie was recast with New Zealand actress Natalie Medlock after Hathaway was deemed too expensive for their budget. Hathaway was an unknown during the making of the first film, and had since gone on to become an Academy-Award-winning Hollywood star.
The filmmakers said they waited to continue with the sequel until they had the resources to replicate the scale of the original. The film's budget was a little under ten million dollars. The decision was made to film in Fiji, where the tax rebate for filming was 47 percent.
Mitch Davis said he was encouraged by John H. Groberg to make the sequel, to tell the complete story of the missionary experience. "He came to me and said, 'I'm not getting any younger, and neither are you, so it's time,'" Davis said. "When he has a certain kind of faith, things do happen."
This film is set 10 years after the events of the first movie.
When The Other Side of Heaven (2001) was released, Thomas S. Monson, then-first counselor in the church's First Presidency, who had asked Groberg decades earlier to write a manuscript of his mission experiences, was similarly enthusiastic. After seeing the movie, Groberg said Monson's first question was "When are you going to make the second movie?" Groberg replied, "I didn't make the first movie."