Short answers, pulled from the story.
Welles declared The Trial the best film he had ever made, a statement he made immediately after completing it. He repeated the claim publicly, saying "Say what you like, but The Trial is the best film I have ever made."
Principal photography took place in Yugoslavia, including Zagreb and Dubrovnik, and later in Rome, Milan, and Paris. The most distinctive interiors were shot at the Gare d'Orsay, an abandoned Parisian railway station, after planned studio space fell through due to financing delays.
Producer Alexander Salkind committed 650 million French francs, equivalent to US $1.3 million in 1962 currency, to the budget. The film earned US $1,403,700 in North America, the UK, and the British Commonwealth but did not make a profit.
In Kafka's novel, Josef K. is fatally stabbed by his executioners after refusing to take a knife and kill himself, dying with the words "like a dog." In Welles's version, Josef K. refuses the knife, taunts the executioners, and is killed when they throw dynamite into the quarry pit; the film ends with the blast forming a mushroom cloud.
Anthony Perkins played Josef K. Welles told Perkins that The Trial was meant to be seen as a black comedy. Welles also deliberately used Perkins's homosexuality to build a subtext of fear and repression into the character's dispassionate responses to the women around him.
In 2000, Milestone Films released a restored DVD based on the long-lost original 35mm negative. A 2K restoration by Rialto Pictures was in circulation in DCP format by 2015, and the Criterion Collection released a 4K restoration on the 19th of September 2023.