Breakdown

M.C. Gainey said that Earl was the darkest character he ever played in a film and regretted it afterwards.

When the Jeep quits running, the odometer reads 242 miles. It has already been driven from Massachusetts to the western US desert.

The film originally had a prologue added at the behest of the producers showing Kurt Russell's character as a cameraman in a war zone. He witnesses the death of a young girl and this prompts the cross country trip with his wife to start a new job. Director Jonathan Mostow did not like the opening and asked Paramount to test screen one version with the prologue and one without. After the screenings, the studio executives agreed with Mostow and opted to remove the prologue.

Edited into Breakdown: Alternate Opening (2021)