K-19: The Widowmaker

Upon reading the film's script, the surviving crew members were so incensed that they sent an open letter to Harrison Ford, producer/director Kathryn Bigelow, and producers Christine Whitaker and Steven-Charles Jaffe, expressing their dismay. Among the less-than-credible details they objected to were profane language, the animosity between the two highest-ranking commanding officers, insubordination among the crew, drunk crew members, the attempted mutiny, the guns (which are kept under seal in a secret location) and the handcuffs (which were only used by and available to cops).

The director and producers of K-19 were the first Western civilians ever allowed inside the Russian naval base at the Kola Peninsula.

The character of Executive Officer Mikhail Polenin is based on the historical Soviet Naval officer Vasili Arkhipov, who served as Deputy Commander and Executive Officer of K-19 during its 1961 nuclear accident. Arkhipov would later serve on the Soviet Submarine B-59 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and reportedly refused to concur with the launch of a nuclear torpedo against an American destroyer, thus almost certainly preventing the outbreak of World War III. Arkhipov would go on to hold several submarine command postings and was a submarine squadron commander before promotion to Rear Admiral in 1975. He was made a Vice Admiral in 1981, retiring a few years later, and died in 1998. The events during the Cuban Missile Crisis inspired Crimson Tide (1995) with Denzel Washington's character based on Arkhipov.

The blue glow inside the nuclear reactor is known as the Cherenkov effect. In order to simulate it, the crew poured seven hundred two-liter bottles of Canada Dry tonic water and illuminated the reactor with ultraviolet light. The tonic water contains quinine, which emits a bluish glow in the presence of ultraviolet light.

The scene in which Captain Vostrikov receives the instructions for the K-19 mission was shot in a formerly top-secret Russian military command center.