- At the beginning of the film, Kurt Russell wears his costume from the original film, which still fits after 15 years.
- Kurt Russell practiced playing basketball between scenes as he wanted to make all of his shots legitimately in the basketball scene later on. He made all of those shots purely on his own talent, even the full-court one.
- In an homage to the famed studio tour where Jaws pops out of the water, a shark tries to bite the mini-sub just as it passes the sign for Universal Studios.
- There are several references to Snake Plissken and the city of Cleveland. This is an in-joke reference to a friend of John Carpenter's who knew a guy from Cleveland named Snake Plissken; this is supposedly where Carpenter got the name for the character when he was writing Escape from New York (1981)
- During the climactic battle scene, when Steve Buscemi's character is hanging off the helicopter, several stores are visible in the matte shot behind him. One of the prominent buildings is clearly marked "Miniatures", a reference to the filmmaking technique.
- The orphan in the cap that Snake Plissken makes eye contact with while being escorted down the hallway was played by Kurt Russell’s son Wyatt Russell.
- Escape From LA was caught in development hell for over ten years. A script for the film was first commissioned in 1985 but John Carpenter thought it "too light, too campy". It remained dormant until Carpenter and Kurt Russell got together with frequent collaborator Debra Hill. It was Russell's persistence that got the film made. Snake Plissken was his favourite character, a character he loved and wanted to play again.
- White Zombie contributed the track "The One" written specifically for the soundtrack to Escape From L.A.. White Zombie's frontman Rob Zombie later went on to direct a remake of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978).
- The movie was a notorious failure on release, making around $25 million (just half its budget) at the US box office. Many reviews criticized the film for being too violent or for being too similar to the original film.
- According to an interview with John Carpenter, Kurt Russell not only came up but wrote the entire ending of the movie.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Trivia items below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
- SPOILER: The Plutoxin 7 virus hoax was originally going to be part of the first movie, but was never used.
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