Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones are good friends in real life. Also, they were both considered to play Snake Plissken in "Escape from New York (1981)" before Kurt Russell got the part.
MGM had such confidence in the finished film that they delayed the film from its original April 1994 release date to the busy summer July 94 hoping it would be a surprise hit.
Jeff Bridges turned down the lead role in "Speed (1994)" to do this film. That was also a mad bomber movie released in the same year as this film.
Loyd Catlett, who plays Bama, is Jeff Bridges' stand-in and stunt double in this film and several other films.
The "pair of ragged claws" that Tommy Lee Jones refers to in the beach scene is from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot.