In the closing credits, Malone is holding his Virginia driver's license as it slowly burns . The signature on the card of the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles reads "Alfred E. Newman", who is "Mad Magazine"'s goofy mascot.
According to an interview Burt Reynolds gave to the "Los Angeles Times" in January 1987, the role of Malone was offered to Gérard Depardieu and then Christopher Lambert, before it was offered to him.
Burt Reynolds said of the film: "I was attracted to 'Malone' because I thought there was a chance the movie might be more than a guy running away from his past. Let's be honest. The film is Shane (1953). I am an ex-CIA man whose car breaks down in a small town who then gets close to a family and attempts to battle a Lyndon LaRouche character played by [Cliff Robertson (I)]. I'm not doing [Clint Eastwood] in Pale Rider (1985). There's a little bit of [Sylvester Stallone] from First Blood (1982) in this, but I'm not playing the damaged-goods-guy Sly became in 'Rambo'. Just to show you how movies change, Gerard Depardieu and Christopher Lambert at one point were going to play Malone. I wonder how this guy got rewritten into me".
In the early 1980s Burt Reynolds was in talks to adapt novelist Don Pendleton's character "Mack Bolan" from the immensely popular "Executioner" series, which was published from 1969-80. Due to Reynolds' character using the 44 Automag, a signature weapon of Mack Bolan, "Malone" was initially mistaken for a Mack Bolan episode. However, it was based off the relatively obscure novel titled, "Shotgun" by William P, Wingate. Reynolds used the Automag as a joke directed at his friend and cinematic rival, Clint Eastwood.