Initially, Russell Crowe signed up for the title role, but in the autumn of 2001 he was replaced by Brad Pitt because Crowe was too busy working on another project.
According to an article in Wired, this is the "first Hollywood production created entirely on Linux". Animators used more than 250 HP workstations, loaded with Red Hat Linux and custom animation software, to render the film.
In order to get a U rating (same as an American G) the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) requires that 12 seconds featuring a head-butt had to be removed. An uncut 12 years and upwards rating would be the lowest that would allow the head-butt to be kept in.
In the original legend, Sinbad is from Baghdad, not Greece.
Spike, Sinbad's dog, was more popular in a screen test than Sinbad himself, so the filmmakers added in seven new Spike scenes before the film was released.
In the scene in which the entire crew, including Spike, is loosing their lunch after traveling at top speeds you can hear a man say, "Hey, where did he get the carrot?" According to the filmmakers, that line was a joke someone said during story production that made everyone groan so much that they decided to put it in the movie.
The original storyline for the film was to focus on the first voyage of Sinbad, then it would be followed by 6 sequels focusing on the other six voyages he had. However after the box-office disappointment of The Road to El Dorado (2000), Jeffrey Katzenberg decided on having one movie, which didn't just focus on the one voyage.