Trivia: The original black Jaguar XJ6 Series III car, as used in the TV series of the same name, makes a cameo appearance in the background of the scene where McCall tortures the corrupt cop.
Trivia: When Ben gets shot during the video game he is playing, he lets out a Wilhelm scream.
Trivia: Funded mainly through the use of online crowd-funding.
Trivia: Glenn Close is only twelve years older than John Hawkes, who plays her son.
Trivia: Katie Holmes plays Brenton Thwaites' mother in the film, even though in real life she's only 10 years his senior.
Trivia: Ben Affleck reportedly based his performance on real-life men who were convicted of murdering their wives, in order to lend to the "did he or didn't he?" mystery of the film. In particular, Affleck took inspiration from Scott Peterson, a man infamous for murdering his wife and unborn son in 2002, and was surrounded by a similar media circus to Affleck's Nick Dunne.
Trivia: Part of the inspiration for the film came from a friend of writer/director Jennifer Kent. Her friend, a single mother, had a young son who like many children was terrified of non-existent "monsters" he thought were lurking in his home. Kent then had the idea to turn this into a film. What if a child was terrified of monsters lurking in their closet, under their beds, etc... except they were real?
Trivia: Paul Jesson and Timothy Spall play father and son in this film. In real life, Jesson is only ten years older than Spall.
Trivia: Eva Green plays Shailene Woodley's mother in the film, even though in real life she's only 12 years older than Woodley.
Trivia: After posting Obama signs in yards, Mason Sr got into his car and told Mason and Samantha, "Look, I'm a patriot, all right?" He drives away but the camera stays fixed on the now-visible Jeep parked on the opposite side of the street. This appears to be showing another kind of "Patriot" [Jeep Patriot], but it is actually a Liberty. (01:02:59)
Trivia: During the Cinderella performance in the POW camp, one "sister" demands her dress be fixed so that she can woo the charming Prince Hillenbrand. Laura Hillenbrand is the author of the biography on which this film is based.
Trivia: Josh Brolin Dwight had been previously portrayed by actor Clive Owen in the first film. As originally planned, Brolin would play the character prior to his plastic surgery, while Owen would reprise his role and play Dwight post plastic-surgery. However, Owen was unavailable to reprise his role, and thus prosthetics were used to attempt to make Brolin's post-surgery look subtly similar to Owen's facial structure.
Trivia: The fancy Mercedes is not "the only one in America" (as John Madec said on the movie) but the only one in the world. The car was borrowed for the purpose of the movie by one of the owners of the Formula One team McLaren and was shipped by air from Germany. Hence German licence plates often seen during the film.
Trivia: In Ben's taxi there's a rubber shark snout with teeth hanging from the rearview mirror. Ben is also the name of the fisherman in Jaws, whose decapitated head pops out underwater. Taxi driver Ben is even dressed similarly to the fisherman character in Jaws. In this movie taxi driver Ben is played by Judd Hirsch, who starred on the 70s-80s TV show Taxi, along with Christopher Lloyd and Danny DeVito.