Riccardo Freda maintained that it was himself who had the idea to adapt Romeo and Juliet, having been an admirer of William Shakespeare since his youth and that he convinced Goffredo Lombardo, who had gone bankrupt after the production of Sodom and Gomorrah, to create the production company Imprecine and set up a co-production deal with Spain for this film and Genoveffa di Brabante. Other sources such as Stefano Della Casa state that Freda was commissioned to shoot a Shakespeare adaptation by the Spanish company Hispamer Films, and accepted only as it would allow him to make a period drama, which he could inject elements of his favourite genre, the adventure film. The film reinvents the Montague and Capulets as land and cattle owners with disputes over land pastures. Minutella had suggested that the elements are borrowed from Sergio Leone's Westerns of the period, which Italian film critic and historian Curti stated was impossible as the films were only released days apart from each other.
