The film premiered on Netflix on December 11, 2015. On January 6, 2016, Netflix announced that the film had been viewed more times in thirty days than any other movie in Netflix history. It also made it to the number one spot in every territory in which Netflix operates.
The movie was initially to be produced by Sony Pictures, then Paramount Pictures, but both studios passed on the project. Warner Brothers was in an advanced state of negotiations, but dropped it after Adam Sandler signed a four-picture deal with Netflix. Some of the alleged reasons included Sandler's recent streak of box-office duds (including That's My Boy (2012) and Men, Women & Children (2014)), and fear that Sandler's Netflix contract would put the movie on hold for too long. Netflix picked up the movie as part of Sandler's contract.
During his brief cameo, Norm MacDonald speaks like western actor Slim Pickens. MacDonald has mentioned in interviews that Pickens is one of the few impressions he's good at, but it's hardly ever called for.
On April 23, 2015, Indian Country Today Media Network reported that the film's Native American cultural advisor, and 12 Native American actors and actresses, left the set in protest of its portrayal of Apache culture. The New York Daily News later reported that four out of over 100 Native American actors and actresses left the set. Navajo Nation tribal members Loren Anthony, and film student Allison Young, said they left because they felt the film portrayed Native Americans in a negative light, and took satire too far. They also complained that the portrayal of women was degrading. A representative of Netflix responded, "The movie has ridiculous in the title for a reason: because it is ridiculous. It is a broad satire of Western movies and the stereotypes they popularized, featuring a diverse cast that is not only part of, but in on the joke." On May 4, the New York Daily News reported that Ricky Lee, a Native American actor in the film, said that previous news reports were exaggerated, and indeed there were only "four actors who left, but there were one hundred fifty extras, including grandmas and grandpas and children, who kept working." Apparently, before the film's wrap party, Adam Sandler approached Lee and several other actors to speak about the controversy. According to Lee, those who left raised legitimate issues, but it was "the wrong battlefield".