It was originally intended that Bronson's real-life wife Jill Ireland play Bronson's leading lady, but as associate producer she advocated for Theresa Saldana to play the role. Saldana had survived being stabbed by an obsessive stalker only two years earlier and was looking to get back into acting in films. After much debate with the producers, Saldana was allowed to play the role and insisted on doing some of her own stunts to prove she was physically all right. That same year, Saldana played herself in the film Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story (1984), which re-enacted her miraculous survival of the murder attempt.
While filming in Mexico, Charles Bronson and his wife Jill Ireland took a young orphan under their wings and made sure he was fed and taken care of every day they were there. The boy got his choice of food from the catering on the film and was allowed to eat before any of the crew got their chance.
The entire movie was filmed on location in Mexico without the use of sound stages at a movie studio.
Since Charles Bronson first began working at the Cannon Group on Death Wish II (1982), this picture is the only film during the 1980s that Bronson didn't make with them.
The title of the film, as well as the novel on which it was based, reference the William Shakespeare play "Julius Caesar", Act 3, Scene ii. It reads: "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones."