Agent Dale Shelby (Janeane Garofalo) spends the night in a hotel room with three films taken from the crime scene she visited that day. The films are Alien (1979), True Romance (1993) and Swingers (1996). "Alien" was directed by this film's Producer Ridley Scott, "True Romance" was directed by Tony Scott, also a Producer on this film and Ridley Scott's brother, and "Swingers" starred this film's lead actor, Vince Vaughn.
Joaquin Phoenix was at first apprehensive about taking the role of Clay because he feared that the scripts combination of humor and violence wouldn't translate well to the screen. However, Phoenix changed his mind after meeting an enthusiastic Director David Dobkin and took the role.
Though never spoken in the film the name of the town where it's set is Mercer, Montana according to the script. The local population of the fictional town is 1,536 - though it drops over the course of the film.
While the film was set in Montana, the production was forced to be shot in Utah and Lancaster, California for budgetary matters.
This is the first film to use the 1998 Scott Free bird logo.