Brad Renfro, who played Jack, considered giving up acting before he was cast in this film. It would ultimately become his final role, with the film being released shortly after his death.
The original script was over two hours long and featured storylines not included in the final cut. According to screenplay writer Bret Easton Ellis, early cuts of the film, though vastly different than his original screenplay, made for a tighter narrative and an overall more cohesive film. Ellis claims that the shorter the film got with every subsequent cut, the less sense it made.
Ultimately dissatisfied with the final product, screenplay writer Bret Easton Ellis refused to do any heavy publicity for the film, save for five magazine interviews, which he was contractually obligated to do, as well as a brief appearance at the film's premiere.
Because Los Angeles changed so much between the mid 1980s and 2008, and because filming there was so expensive, most of the film was made in Montevideo, Uruguay, which boasted enough locations and resources to recreate 1980s Los Angeles at a lower cost.
Amber Heard spent about 58% of her entire performance naked. She said in an interview "I took on full nudity for that film because the script was based on (Bret Easton Ellis's) book and I wanted to represent the raw intensity, the important character aspects of what makes this story so dark and compelling and twisted," Heard explained. "I took a big risk and took a gamble and in this case I lost. The movie turned out to be a big flop."