In his bluray commentary, Alex Proyas said that Brandon Lee was unhappy with the way his face paint looked when the makeup department applied it to him before shooting. Lee and Proyas then agreed that it would look best if Lee applied his own makeup every night before going to bed so that when he woke up his face paint would naturally look more worn out.
The "For Brandon and Eliza" dedication at the start of the end credits was for Brandon Lee, who was accidentally killed in the production of this movie, and his fiancé Eliza Hutton who supported Alex Proyas' decision to complete the movie.
Although he was not at fault for the death of Brandon Lee, Michael Massee stopped acting for a year because he was so traumatized by the incident. (His next film was a small role in Se7en (1995).) Up until his death in 2016, he had never watched the film.
According to James O'Barr, he didn't like casting Brandon Lee as the main lead for his comic-book adaptation. At that time he had only seen him in Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) and feared it would end up like a Kung Fu movie and go straight to video. But he was thrilled when he first met Brandon on the set with the makeup and Crow outfit. He was amazed by Brandon's take on the character when he spoke the exact lines from the comics.
In 2005, 12 years after the accidental shooting of Brandon Lee, Michael Massee (who fired the gun) claimed to still have nightmares of the incident.