Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez were having a movie trivia contest on the set one day. Estevez asked Dreyfuss to identify the movie that the line "This is no boating accident" was from. Dreyfuss didn't recognize the quote, despite the fact that he was the actor who said it in Jaws (1975). Deciding that this was too good to pass up, this incident was re-enacted for the film.
Aidan Quinn replaced Val Kilmer. Kilmer was originally cast as Richard "Stick" Montgomery but dropped out before filming began.
Along with Lethal Weapon (1987), Leonard Nimoy was considered as director on both, but was not apparently comfortable with directing big action, and had already signed on to direct Three Men and a Baby (1987).