John Cho grew out his hair to mimic Spike Spiegel's look from the anime, and he insisted that composer Yoko Kanno be locked in for the project before he agreed to accept the role.

The anime's original director Shinichirō Watanabe revealed that Spike Spiegel was originally based on Japanese-Korean actor Yūsaku Matsuda.

Showrunner André Nemec deliberately cast older actors for the leads, arguing that live-action versions of the characters needed more life experience and depth than their animated counterparts.

Several original Japanese voice actors from the anime, including Kōichi Yamadera (Spike), returned to reprise their roles for the Japanese dub of the live-action series.

Whitney Haggis Matsumoto, a con artist posing as Faye's mother, was originally a male character in the anime but was changed for the live-action adaptation.

Filming took place across 185 locations in Auckland, New Zealand between July 2019 and March 2021, chosen because the city's urban environment fit the show's grittier aesthetic.

In October 2019, John Cho sustained a knee injury that delayed production by about eight months, giving the showrunners extra time to move some planned second-season elements, like the character Gren, into season one.

Production was also halted due to New Zealand's COVID-19 shutdown and resumed on September 30, 2020, before wrapping on March 15, 2021.

Actress Elena Satine, who played Julia, was pregnant during filming.

Costume designer Jane Holland redesigned Faye Valentine's iconic outfit to accommodate hidden stunt pads and gel padding needed for the action sequences, while striving to avoid gratuitous sexualization.

Yoko Kanno, composer of the original 1998 anime score, returned to compose the music for the live-action series, and the anime's opening theme 'Tank!' was used in the new opening credits, which took three days to film.

Showrunner André Nemec and the writers drew inspiration from films that influenced original anime director Shinichirō Watanabe, including The Big Sleep, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Bonnie and Clyde, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dirty Harry, Lethal Weapon, and The Crow.

Watanabe served as a creative consultant early in production, providing concept art and reference materials, but later publicly stated the finished product 'was clearly not Cowboy Bebop' after watching only its opening casino scene.

After Netflix canceled the series just three weeks after release, fans launched a petition titled 'Save the live action Cowboy Bebop' that gathered over 150,000 signatures, including one from Steve Blum, the English voice actor for Spike in the anime.

Despite accumulating almost 74 million viewing hours worldwide on Netflix's Top 10, the show's viewership dropped by 59 percent in its second week, contributing to its cancellation.