According to Rutger Hauer, Gary Busey wrote his entire dinner monologue about the origin of his scar himself. The script had several scenes of Hauer's character Burns establishing his natural leadership by reminding the other hunters to abide by his rules. Originally, the dinner scene would be the moment where he puts Busey's character Doc back in his place. However, on the day of rehearsals, Busey came up with a two-page monologue about his dog that he wanted to try out. Hauer felt that Busey was obviously trying to steal his scene away by not giving him a chance to intervene in his monologue. So during the actual filming, Hauer improvised a quick response to the story by calling it "bullshit", which greatly confused Busey. However, Busey's delivery so impressed the director and the other actors that his monologue was kept in the final film, and Hauer's retort wasn't used.
This movie was released less than a year after Hard Target (1993), with a similar plot about homeless people being hunted for sport.
No sets or soundstages were used. The entire movie was shot in real locations.
The derelict land where Jack Mason (Ice-T) lives in the old camper van is now a Bank of America parking lot.
This is one of numerous movies based on the short story "The Most Dangerous Game", written by Richard Connell, first published in 1924 in Collier's Magazine.The first movie based on the story, was The Most Dangerous Game (1932), and featured Fay Wray, Joel McCrea, and Leslie Banks.