The role of Axel Foley was originally offered to Mickey Rourke, who signed a $400,000 holding contract, but he left the project when preparations took longer than expected.

Both Martin Scorsese and David Cronenberg were offered to direct the film but turned it down; Scorsese felt the concept was too similar to Coogan's Bluff (1968).

Sylvester Stallone was originally considered for the lead role and rewrote the script into a straight action film, renaming the character Axel Cobretti and killing off the Rosewood character halfway through; he described his version's finale as a car chase against an oncoming freight train.

Stallone dropped out of the project two weeks before filming began, reportedly to focus on Rhinestone (1984), and later reused much of his script's ideas as the basis for his 1986 film Cobra.

Besides Stallone and Rourke, actors considered for Axel Foley included Richard Pryor, Al Pacino, and James Caan, while Harrison Ford was offered the role but turned it down.

The final shooting draft of the script, extensively revised with Eddie Murphy's input after he felt the original wasn't funny, was not completed until the day production began.

The film was budgeted at $14 million, including $4 million for Murphy's salary, and was completed for around $13 million; many scenes set in Beverly Hills were actually shot in Pasadena because Beverly Hills prohibited filming after 10:30 p.m.

The film shipped a record 1.3 million videos in the United States on its initial home video release and held the record for highest domestic gross of an R-rated film for nearly two decades until The Matrix Reloaded surpassed it in 2003.