This is Nicolas Cage's first biography. Cage wanted to use his deal with Amazon to get his first biography or musical movie, and at the same time David O. Russell was looking to finance his Madden project after three years of development, so both agreed on the collaboration.
David O. Russell considered Will Ferrell and Hugh Jackman to portray Madden, but Amazon Studios asked for Nicolas Cage to be cast as he signed a full year deal with them for the Spider-Noir series.
Although John Madden was 7 years younger than Al Davis, Nicolas Cage is 10 years older than Christian Bale.
Christian Bale is a big Nicolas Cage fan especially his movie Embrasse-moi, vampire (1988), which inspired his performance as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (2000).