Producers couldn't find a 7ft. 1in. (216 cm) stunt double for Shaquille O'Neal. He had to do all of his own stunts.
In an interview with SlashFilm, writer/director Kenneth Johnson revealed that he originally wanted Wesley Snipes to play Steel. Warner Bros. felt that casting Shaquille O'Neal would help sell more toys and merchandise.
The shooting schedule was 51 days, with 32 full nights of shooting in downtown Los Angeles. Shaquille O'Neal was already committed to playing in the 1996 Summer Olympics, and training at the Los Angeles Lakers camp in Hawaii, leaving Johnson five weeks to shoot all of O'Neal's scenes. O'Neal had one read through of the script before the Olympics, then worked on his character with acting coach Ben Martin between games. When O'Neal returned to act with the rest of the cast, he had all his lines memorized.
Kenneth Johnson took a copy of the script to South Central Los Angeles, and spent a day with a group of kids to make sure that the language of some of the characters was believable.