In October 2018, Jeff Nichols revealed he had been thinking about making a biker film set in the 1960s for five years, although he did not at that stage have a script, and mentioned the idea on the set of Long Way Back Home to Michael Shannon who reportedly told him "You've been talking about that damn idea for so long. You're never gonna make that [film]".
This is Jeff Nichols' fifth collaboration with Michael Shannon.
The biker gang that inspired the film still exists as of 2023 and is a rival to the Hell's Angels.
The prosthetic tattoos that Austin Butler wore for his character appeared so realistic that an interviewer thought they were real and asked how and when he had time to get so many tattoos on his arms.