Jamie Foxx brought up the idea of a Miami Vice film to Michael Mann during a party for Ali, which led Mann to revisit the TV series he had helped create in the 1980s.

Like Mann's earlier film Collateral (which also starred Foxx), most of Miami Vice was shot with the Thomson Viper FilmStream digital camera, with Super 35 film used for high-speed and underwater shots.

The production lost seven days of filming due to hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, contributing to delays and a budget that some insiders claimed exceeded $150 million.

Michael Mann sought maximum realism and took Colin Farrell along on what were believed to be real FBI drug busts, though these were later revealed to have been staged.

After gunshots were fired on set in the Dominican Republic on October 24, 2005, Jamie Foxx left the country, forcing production to abandon the script's intended climax (set in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay) and revert to an earlier, previously discarded ending set in Miami.

Jamie Foxx, having just won an Academy Award for Ray after signing on to the film, demanded a salary increase and top billing; his pay was raised considerably while Colin Farrell's was cut slightly to balance it out.

Foxx refused to fly commercially and successfully lobbied Universal to hire him a private jet, and he also objected to filming scenes on boats or planes.

The drug trafficker Sal Magluta, mentioned by Tubbs as running go-fast boats in the film's opening scenes, is based on a real-life Miami 'Cocaine Cowboy' who is serving a life sentence for money laundering.

Michael Mann deliberately distanced the film from the TV series musically by declining to use the show's famous theme song and not inviting original series composer Jan Hammer to score the film.

Phil Collins' 'In the Air Tonight,' featured in the TV series' pilot, appears in the film as a cover by Miami band Nonpoint during the closing credits; Mann's Director's Edit instead places the song just before the climactic gun battle.

The RZA was originally set to contribute to the film's score but dropped out for unknown reasons, and Atlanta-based producers Organized Noize were brought in to replace him.

Critic Steven Hyden wrote in 2016 that Miami Vice had become a cult favorite among younger critics and filmmakers, calling it 'one of the most expensive art films ever made' due to its focus on atmosphere over plot.

Director Harmony Korine cited Miami Vice as a major influence on his 2012 film Spring Breakers, praising its colors and texture over its dialogue or storyline.

Michael Mann has repeatedly called Miami Vice 'the movie that got away,' expressing regret that production circumstances prevented shooting the intended elaborate ending in Ciudad del Este.