At 1:15:48 Luke says the $30 million is in $1,000 and $5,000 bills. The U.S. stopped printing the $1,000 bill and larger denominations by 1946, but these bills continued circulating until the Federal Reserve decided to recall them in 1969.
After his previous film, Death in Love (2008), barely managed to get a theatrical release and effectively went straight to DVD, Boaz Yakin was keen to make a film that stood a chance at some kind of box office success.
The scenes at the mayor's mansion were filmed at the Bloomfield estate in Villanova, Pennsylvania. On April 4th (less than one month before the film's release), the garage burst into flames, starting what would eventually become a four alarm fire that destroyed most of the third floor of the main house.
Boaz Yakin's plan as director was to recapture the energy of New York City that he remembered from films like The Warriors (1979), Death Wish (1974) and The Seven-Ups (1973).
Although he had written several action films, like The Punisher (1989) and The Rookie (1990), this is the first one that Boaz Yakin has actually directed.