In a June 2008 interview with The Guardian, Abel Ferrara, who directed and co-wrote the original Bad Lieutenant (1992), said that finding out his movie was being remade was "a horrible feeling", "like when you get robbed", and that those involved in this remake "should all die in hell". He also wondered how Nicolas Cage "can even have the nerve to play Harvey Keitel", and called screenwriter William M. Finkelstein an idiot.
Although being promoted as a remake of Bad Lieutenant (1992) during its early production, director Werner Herzog claims that this is not a remake. He says he has never seen the original and therefore does not consider this movie a remake. Additionally, producers seemed to have added "Bad Lieutenant" to the title in order to get a better marketing. Whether remake, re-imagining, follow-up or none of the aforementioned, both movies are clearly connected by the basic plot of following a drug addicted, violent cop during his encounters with crime and sex.