Steven Seagal and Michael Kenneth Williams became close on set, but had a falling out because Seagal wouldn't stop incessantly talking about Jason Statham.
This film and Today You Die (2005) led to a huge falling out between star Steven Seagal and producer Avi Lerner. Lerner alleged that Seagal was constantly late on set and kept changing his dialogue, whilst Seagal claimed that he was not paid $835,000 of the agreed fee and his contract stated he was allowed to rewrite his dialogue. The case went to court where Lerner counter-sued Seagal for $14 million claiming 'breach of contract' (which Seagal said was 'a blatant smokescreen to take attention away from the fact he hadn't paid me properly in the first place'). The case was settled out of court and several years later Lerner would produce 'The Expendables' film franchise. Whilst casting one of the sequels star Sylvester Stallone contacted Seagal to ask if he would be interested in playing a role. Seagal replied that whilst he had no problems with working with Stallone or any of the other actors, his anger towards Lerner still resonated and he did not want to be part of a project with Lerner's involvement.
In an interview, director Don E. FauntLeRoy claimed this film's producers had an intense dislike of Steven Seagal and as such made as little effort as possible to produce a quality product. When FauntLeRoy first came onto the project the script was a hodgepodge of combined drafts that made little sense, but his concerns were ignored by the producers, who proceeded to cut an important scene that made the story even more difficult to follow. He also claimed that the famous lawsuit Avi Lerner filed against Seagal had been prepared before production even began, in anticipation of Seagal causing problems on the set. FauntLeRoy states that he and Seagal got along quite well, but the lawsuit was filed anyway.
Inside info claims Seagal antagonized most of the crew, specially actor Roger Guenveur Smith, who was always gracious and calm throughout the whole experience. In the last day of filming, Guenveur Smith finally got back at Seagal, pointing to Seagal's head and making a remark that made cast and crew explode with laughter: "Nice rug! I think I just found my long lost black cat!". Seagal went ballistic, and he had to be thrown out of the set.