Director Mikael Håfström said that 90% of the film was shot inside an empty facility in New Orleans which had previously been used by NASA to construct space shuttles.
The idea of a movie co-starring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger had been discussed between the two men for many years, as far back as the mid-1980s. Different scripts had been pitched or written, but Schwarzenegger said his and Stallone's schedules were not able to match up. Schwarzenegger's exit as governor and his cameo appearance in Stallone's Expendables : Unité spéciale (2010) prompted the two of them to revisit the idea of working together in both this movie and Expendables 2 : Unité spéciale (2012).
During filming on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, a military convention caused streams of uniformed soldiers and Marines to accidentally stumble onto the set. When the crew began to clear the set for the shoot, Sylvester Stallone made a point to stop and pose for pictures with multiple men and women in uniform.
The German dubbing studio decided to recast the voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger with Ralph Schicha (who used a slight Austrian accent which adds a little extra fun for German audiences (since Danneberg normally dubs Schwarzenegger in Standard German)). The reason for this was that Thomas Danneberg, who normally dubs Schwarzenegger, is also the German dubbing voice of Sylvester Stallone. It was feared that the same voice for two actors might confuse audiences. However, some fans did not like the decision and pleaded for a new dubbing which was ultimately denied by the German licensee Concorde.
Screenwriter Jason Keller is credited under the pseudonym of Arnell Jesko, an anagram of his own name.