In an interview, director John Carpenter said that they had to glue Kurt Russell's ears back because they stuck too far out.
According to John Carpenter in his DVD commentary on Big Trouble in Little China (1986) with Kurt Russell, Carpenter got the job directing this film because the producers found out he did the music for Halloween (1978), and figured he could handle a biopic of Elvis Presley.
John Carpenter: A long-haired man with a mustache smoking and standing behind someone at the blackjack table near the beginning of the film, when Elvis Presley's entourage is walking through the casino.