Cozzi, Bava described the filming as "nightmarish", and said that De Laurentiis had him tone down the violent scenes in the film. Law commented that the producer and director had opposite ideas for the film: De Laurentiis wanted to make a family-friendly film with a charming thief in the vein of Raffles, while Bava wanted to make a film that was faithful to the comic books. Lamberto Bava recalled that while his father's relationship with the producer was generally amiable, he was also frustrated by De Laurentiis' frequent absences due to his commitments to other films. Danger: Diabolik finished filming on June 18, 1967. Law stated that shortly after the film's production ended, shooting began on Barbarella. This led to the same sets, such as the set for Valmont's teen discotheque, being used in both films. Although De Laurentiis set aside $3 million with which to make the film, the final budget came to only 200 million lire. Despite their difficult working relationship, De Laurentiis was highly impressed by Bava's efforts, especially by the visual effects, jokingly declaring that he would inform Paramount that the film had gone overbudget, and that a matte painting of the car hangar in Diabolik's lair was actually a set that cost $200,000. He decided that the money saved from the production needed to be used immediately to make a sequel, but Bava refused, later telling Cozzi, "I informed [De Laurentiis] that Diabolik was immobilized, that he was suffering from a permanent disability — that he was dead!". The director would work again for De Laurentiis only twice more: on two episodes of the television miniseries The Odyssey, which he co-directed with Franco Rossi, and on Sergei Bondarchuk's Waterloo, for which he went uncredited for his visual effects work. His recollection of his experiences on Danger: Diabolik led Bava to turn down De Laurentiis' offer to provide special effects for King Kong, recommending Rambaldi instead. Danger: Diabolik would also prove to be the only film Bava would direct for a major Hollywood studio such as Paramount; for the remainder of his career, he would work for independent producers who Lamberto Bava often described as "dodgy". Visual effects Lucas has analysed Bava's extensive use of visual effects photography in Danger: Diabolik and its implementation of techniques used in his earlier films, albeit to a more flamboyant degree as allowed by the film's budget. With regard to