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The film is to release in 2016, the 20th anniversary of Yu-Gi-Oh's debut (it first appeared as a manga in September 1996).

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For the English dub of the film, most of the voice actors from the English dub of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! television series returned to reprise their respective characters. The notable exception is Wayne Grayson who, in addition to reprising his character of Joey Wheeler, also now voices Solomon Moto (Yugi's grandfather) as the original actress, Madeleine Blaustein, passed away in 2008.

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If looking closely at one shot of the audience during the Kaiba Land duel between Yugi, Aigami / Diva, and Seto Kaiba, one can spot the characters of Rex Raptor and Weevil Underwood for a short moment.

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Grandpa, in this film, is coloured the same way (pink and grey) as his character in the original Yu-Gi-Oh! (1998) Toei animated series.

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In celebration of the film and the 20 year anniversary of the franchise in general, TV Tokyo began airing a remastered digital edition of the 2000-2004 Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters anime in Japan.

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An early version of the script initially featured a scene where Téa grew impatient with Yugi, who was obsessing over cards. The scene was eventually cut. Kazuki Takahashi later published an illustration of it on his Instagram.

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The manga creator Kazuki Takahashi personally drew the keyframes for one of the film's sequences.

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A manga special, titled Transcend Game for both parts 1 and 2, was printed in Weekly Shonen Jump, and serves as a link between the end of the original manga series and the beginning of this film.

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The film was announced in the West before it was in Japan. 4K Media revealed the film's existence on the official Yu-Gi-Oh! website. They teased that the movie was already in development in Japan and that they were shopping for a distributor in all non-Asian territories.

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In Japan, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper's MAiDiGiTV streamed a video teasing the film, alongside a recap of the history of the near-twenty year franchise. Here, it was revealed that the film would feature Yugi Muto and Seto Kaiba as its main protagonists.

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The forty-seventh issue of Weekly Shonen Jump unveiled two new monsters that will be played by Yugi, 'Lemon Magician Girl' and 'Apple Magician Girl', and specified that 'Dark Magician Girl' will also be appearing. 'Clear Kuriboh' was also revealed, but its name was not announced.

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A number of the characters and elements are given redesigns by Kazuki Takahashi, as well as new ones being introduced: * Yugi Muto: He was drawn to look more mature and to show he inherited Dark Yugi's strength. He has also noticeably gotten taller. * Solomon Muto: The only changes he received were his clothes being recolored. * Seto Kaiba: His expressions are closer to the more sinister look that he had when he was first introduced in the original series. * Mokuba Kaiba: He is completely redrawn compared to all of the other characters and received the most change out of all of them. He now wears business suits and has a shorter haircut, to reflect his maturity and his professionalism. * Joey Wheeler: Joey's facial expression reflects the maturity he gained from his battles in the original story. As a favorite of Takahashi, he paid particular attention to giving him a nice face. * Tristan Taylor: Tristan has a much calmer expression. * Téa Gardner: Téa continued her career as a dancer after the original story. Takahashi considered this to be Téa at her cutest. * Duke Devlin: Duke only received some minor changes, his hair is slightly longer and smoother, he wears a different variation of his red outfit, and has friendlier facial expressions. * Bakura Ryou: Takahashi considered Bakura to be the most mysterious and consequently the least changed out of the major characters. He, however, now has a smoother haircut and a long-sleeved shirt underneath his T-shirt.

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Kazuki Takahashi also paid special attention in redesigning the iconic duel monsters: * Dark Magician: this version looks similar to it's appearance in Duel Art. Originally, Dark Magician was more blue and purple than black. This was because in the manga, a completely black character weighs the page down and can be difficult to deal with, but this is not a concern in movies. * Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon: When designing monsters, Takahashi felt adding a lot of lines can make them look cool at the cost of quality, and that simple designs are most beautiful. However, as he was dealing with animation, lighting and other effects would bring out the differences, so he designed this 'Blue-Eyes' with a style not used before. * Dark Magician Girl: with the iconic apprentice of Dark Magician, Takahashi redrew the Dark Magician Girl to be more feminine and girlish in her appearance.

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This film introduces a new-and-improved Duel Disk never seen before in the franchise, developed by Kaiba Corporation, that creates Solid Vision holograms from the user's imagination.

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4K Media held a contest in August 2016 offering fans the chance to provide voices for the English-language release of the film.

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In the film's limited screenings in North America from January 27, 2017 to February 9, 2017, limited edition trading cards were being handed out for attendees.

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The film was not actually censored or edited for it's international release, which was a common practice for the original TV series and its sequels. This is the first time it has happened for the franchise.

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This film is the longest feature length film in the franchise in terms of runtime. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light (2004) was 90 minutes (101 in Japan) and Yu-Gi-Oh! Bonds Beyond Time (2010) was only 60 minutes (50 in Japan). This film is 130 minutes in length.

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Although Chocolate Magician Girl was one of the new Magician Girl monsters created for the movie, along with Lemon and Apple Magician Girl, she is never actually played in the movie and is only briefly seen in a pile of cards when Yugi is reconstructing his deck.

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Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump also unveiled a synopsis of the movie: 'In the past, Dark Yugi and Kaiba have clashed many times! Dark Yugi, who resides in Yugi Muto's body, and Kaiba will have a Duel that bets their prides and accepts each other's mutual experience.'

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During the final duel (and final card move) when Atem finally appears, he plays Pladium Orical Mahad. Mahad was his most trusted servant when he was alive, and the forerunner of the Dark Magician (Yugi's signature card). So Atem using Mahad is a clear connection between his relationship with his friend, and as a relflection of Yugi's relationship with the Dark Magician.

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This film actually takes place as sequel to the manga, not the TV series, as a result there are a few continuity errors with the anime. This can be seen by Kaiba guessing that the millennium item cave was the place for Atem's last duel, when in the TV show he was a witness to it (he is also not present in the flashback to the duel). Also Duke's character is the manga version, seeing as in the TV show he's wealthy; here he's assisting his clown father (who was a manga only character) with his ice cream van. Plus the possible absence of Pegasus can be explained with the fact that in the manga he died a gruesome death (and was never heard from again after Duelist Kingdom).

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Excluding the holographic duel between a simulated Atem and Seto Kaiba, the Pharaoh Atem has only three other short scenes in the film and has no lines in any of them. He appears briefly in Joey's vision to help him escape the dimension, he is finally resurrected in Yugi and Aigami / Diva's duel to help him win, and appears in the afterlife at the end being challenged by Seto Kaiba to a duel. In total, his screentime amounts to only 5 minutes.

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