Several contemporary sources referred to The Scalphunters as screenwriter William Norton’s feature film debut. However, Norton had previously been credited on The Rotten Apple (1963, see entry) and The Farmer’s Other Daughter (1965, see entry). The writer had toiled for many years before meeting with any success, working as a truck driver, a hod carrier, and a park ranger at Morro Bay and William Rogers State Park, the 7 Apr 1967 LAT noted. A young agent submitted his script for The Scalphunters to Levy-Gardner-Laven Productions, who then sent it to Burt Lancaster. After signing on to produce the film, Levy-Gardner-Laven enlisted Norton to work on at least five more scripts, as stated in the 7 Feb 1968 Var.
       Telly Savalas was announced as Burt Lancaster’s co-star in the 23 Nov 1966 DV, which claimed that filming would take place entirely on location beginning mid-Jan 1967. Savalas and Lancaster had previously acted together in 1962’s Birdman of Alcatraz (see entry).
       The start of principal photography was delayed by re-shoots on Lancaster’s previous picture, The Swimmer (1968, see entry), according to a 20 Jan 1967 DV brief. The 26 Jan 1967 DV reported that shooting would begin in Durango and Torreón, Mexico, on 23 Feb 1967, but a 3 Mar 1967 DV production chart later stated that production began earlier, on 15 Feb 1967. Some filming may have taken place in Guaymas, Mexico, where producer Jules Levy and director Sydney Pollack had scouted locations, as noted in the 28 Nov 1966 DV.
       United Artists ultimately spent $4 million on the production in Mexico, according to a 9 Jan 1968 DV brief.
       The film was scheduled to premiere on 12 Mar 1968 as the opening-night attraction at the newly built Fox South Coast Theater in Costa Mesa, CA. A New York City benefit premiere followed on 2 Apr 1968, raising money for Union Settlement, a community center in Harlem where Lancaster had spent time as a boy, the 10 Mar 1968 NYT noted.        Critical reception was mixed. Commenting on the recent opening in Philadelphia, PA, the 10 Apr 1968 Var stated that The Scalphunters had taken in $20,000, an estimated forty-to-fifty percent less than anticipated due to “emergency measures” that had been taken in the city following Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination on 4 Apr 1968, which had stirred racial tension and prompted riots in various U.S. cities. An article in the 1 Jun 1967 Los Angeles Sentinel had previously pointed to The Scalphunters as one of a recent spate, along with Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Hotel (1967, see entries), of films addressing racial bigotry “with both seriousness and humor.” Ossie Davis, who played the slave “Joseph Winfield Lee,” had been quoted in the Los Angeles Sentinel article as saying that The Scalphunters “could do as much in its own way for civil rights through humor as the valuable efforts of Roy Wilkins and Martin Luther King.”
       The picture was listed in the 8 Jan 1969 Var as one of the “Big Rental Films of 1968,” with cumulative film rentals of $2.8 million, to date.
       Fawcett Gold Medal Books published an initial 250,000 copies of a novelization of The Scalphunters written by Ed Friend, according to a 3 Apr 1968 Var item.
       An item in the 21 Dec 1966 DV named Dennis Weaver as a potential cast member; the 22 Mar 1967 Var stated that Pancho Villa, Jr. served as Burt Lancaster’s stand-in; and the 25 Jul 1967 LAT noted that Michael Scheff served as producer Jules Levy’s assistant on the picture.