* ActorInspiredElement: It was Creator/MillaJovovich's idea to say there was a heat wave in Raccoon City, to account for Alice and Jill not wearing very much. It was a brave decision, as they were filming the movie in Toronto in the middle of a very cold November.
* ActorSharedBackground: Creator/ThomasKretschmann was born in East Germany just like his character Timothy Cain according to Keith R.A. [=DeCandido=]'s novelization of the film.
* BTeamSequel: Creator/PaulWSAnderson was going to direct the film, but his commitment to ''Film/AlienVsPredator'' impeded it. He remained as producer and writer, though.
* CaliforniaDoubling: The film was shot in Toronto, with the final act taking place in and around that city's very distinctive city hall. It was the largest production to be shot there to date.
* CastTheExpert: Creator/OdedFehr was in the Israeli military, so he already knew how to use a gun when playing Carlos.
* CreatorBacklash: Jovovich was disappointed with the final product, revealing ExecutiveMeddling had forced them to discard pieces of story and character development in favor of action scenes. Anderson was similarly discontent with the work of his substitute Alexander Witt, who was actually making his directorial debut.
* CreatorKiller: Witt would not direct another film in 14 years.
* TheDanza: Technically. Stuntman Matthew G. Taylor plays Nemesis, [[spoiler:who's actually Matthew Addison]].
* DeletedScene: The DVD contains 12 minutes of deleted footage, most notably an in-universe commercial for a "T-cells" anti-age cosmetic made by Umbrella (which was later used as a teaser trailer) and an alternate ending (in which Alice exits the medical facility without finding armed guards and gets reunited with Jill in her car).
* DyeingForYourArt: Creator/SiennaGuillory is blond but dyed her hair black for the role.
* EditedForSyndication: In the TV-14 cut, LJ has a serious affinity for calling people "Motivators". Just guess what [[ClusterFBomb goes there in the uncut version]].
* FakeAmerican:
** Sienna Guillory (Jill) and Razaaq Adoti (Peyton) are British.
** Creator/SandrineHolt (Terri) is Canadian.
* FakeBrit: Sophie Vavasseur (Angie) is Irish.
* FakeNationality:
** Creator/ZackWard (Nicholai) and Stefen Hayes (Yuri) are Canadians playing Russians.
** Carlos Olivera's nationality isn't known in the games, but it leans towards Brazilian, as his name is written as Oliveira there. Meanwhile, Oded Fehr is Israeli (but speaks his lines with an American accent). The novelizations address it by stating Olivera is a Brazilian of Israeli ascendancy.
* NoStuntDouble: Jovovich did by herself part of Alice's rundown through the city hall, replacing her stunt double when she was at about 200 feet above ground. She also did stunts for the first chase scene with Nemesis, in which she almost ended up injured when she got accidentally tangled in some wires.
* TheOtherDarrin:
** The Red Queen was recast because the original child actress had gotten too old to reprise her role.
** Sort of with Nemesis. He is actually [[spoiler:a mutated Matt]] but played by stuntman Matthew G. Taylor rather than Creator/EricMabius. The latter was originally set to return, showing [[spoiler:Matt transforming into Nemesis]], but he had to pull out.
* StarMakingRole: For Sienna Guillory. Although she had already worked in a couple big scale films, it was her role as Jill what put her on the Hollywood map.
* TroubledProduction: Not as much as most examples of this, but making the film was not an easy road. Filming in Toronto in November meant they had to shoot with very cold weather, which affected particularly Jovovich and Guillory, as they had to wear little clothing due to their characters. There was even a SARS outbreak that almost halted production. Also, Matthew G. Taylor's Nemesis suit weighed 60 pounds (not counting his machinegun, which weighed even more) and was so tiresome and hot that he could not shoot more than 15 minutes between breaks.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Eric Mabius was enthusiastic about returning to play Nemesis, even studying the character in depth to adopt its body language, but he pulled out before production for unknown reasons.
** Paul W.S. Anderson wanted Creator/NatashaHenstridge or Creator/MiraSorvino to play Jill, but both of them were unavailable.
** The character of L.J was originally written for Music/SnoopDogg, but he had to pull out, so it was changed to fit Mike Epps. In addition, L.J was supposed to be a pimp going by the name of Daddy Prime who was hiding from the zombies in a building and had far lesser role before he became a major character.
** Creator/JasonIsaacs, who had made a cameo in the first film as a character that might have been Dr. William Birkin, was set to return, but he had to drop out for undisclosed reasons. He was replaced in the script by Creator/IainGlen playing the CanonForeigner Dr. Isaacs, whose surname was a direct homage to Jason.
** Claire Redfield was set to appear in the film, but she was deleted from the script after not one, but two casting choices (Gina Phillips and Emily Bergl) failed to make it to the project. She would finally appear in ''Film/ResidentEvilExtinction'', played by Creator/AliLarter.
** Jill was meant to meet up with Alice sooner in the film, but this was changed to a TwoLinesNoWaiting format for better pacing.
** In the original plans, Timothy Cain would have survived the Raccoon City incident only to be assassinated later by Alice in a sort of epilogue. Anderson decided to have him killed by zombies in the city for the sake of brevity (and poetic justice).
** The movie was originally going to be titled ''Resident Evil: Nemesis'' but was changed after ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'' came out earlier that year.
* WordOfGod: Alice is not the character's real name, but a fake identity she adopted. Promotional materials give her last name as Abernathy, which is presumably her fake surname. This is also why she's called "Project Alice" in this film and the sequels.