Face/Off Werb and Michael Colleary tried to sell to a studio from as early as 1990. The first actors who were chosen to play Sean Archer and Castor Troy were Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger respectively but John Woo instead hired John Travolta and Nicolas Cage to play those characters. It took numerous studios, producers and rewrites before John Woo became attached several years later. For the Archer character, Woo considered casting either Michael Douglas or Jean-Claude Van Damme with whom he had worked in "Hard Target". When the film was eventually made, Douglas served as an executive producer. Werb and
Angels with Dirty Faces short spoofing their "cycle" of crime films; the cartoon's title, "Thugs with Dirty Mugs", is a direct pun on "Angels with Dirty Faces". In the early 1990s, parodies appeared in the form of films within a film in "Home Alone" and its sequel, "". These parodies are called "Angels with Filthy Souls" and "Angels with Even Filthier Souls". In an episode of "Sesame Street", a segment entitled "Monsters with Dirty Faces" features "Officer Grover showing a gang leader named Rocky how to effectively wash his face." Furthermore, the film's plot inspired an episode of "" called "It's Never Too Late".