Jack Black, Ben Stiller and DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg publicly apologized for the film during a press conference for Shark Tale (2004) at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
Performed so poorly in US theaters, that it was released straight-to-video in Europe.
The scenes featured in the film where Jack Black and Ben Stiller are in Rome were actually shot in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, due to the fact that the film was already over-budget and shooting in Italy would have been significantly more expensive.
The movie having been shot almost two years before it was released in theaters was in danger of being released straight to video due to poor audience response during test screenings. It was only due to School of Rock (2003)'s huge success that it finally got a theatrical release. Paramount, which released "School of Rock", gained the US rights to "Envy" when it purchased DreamWorks in 2006.