Punisher: War Zone Trivia

The character of NYPD Detective Marty Soap comes from the series "Welcome Back, Frank", the series that brought The Punisher back (after a long hiatus) by Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon and Jimmy Palmotti. "Welcome Back" also featured the characters of The Punisher's apartment neighbors Joan, Spacker Dave, and Mister Bumpo, as well as the over-sized villain, The Russian. All of those characters appeared in the 2004 film.

Thomas Jane was originally attached for the lead role, but he turned it down, stating that he thought the script was going in the wrong direction. He felt it was too "comic book," whereas he wanted a more gritty, realistic approach.

The character of Microchip was considered for the first Punisher, but director Jonathan Hensleigh had such an intense hatred of the character that he was left out of the final draft.

Doug Hutchison initially passed on the project because he didn't respond to the script nor the role of Looney Bin Jim. Director Lexi Alexander called him to pitch the movie and her vision and, by the end of their phone conversation, Hutchison had already changed his mind and accepted the role.

The hotel Jigsaw (Dominic West) tells The Punisher (Ray Stevenson) to meet him at is the Bradstreet Hotel. This is a reference to Timothy Bradstreet, who was the long running cover artist for "The Punisher" comics.

Dominic West originally passed on the villain role of Jigsaw. Paddy Considine was in talks to play the role, when Dominic West came back and accepted to play the part.

This is the first movie by Marvel to use the 'Marvel Knights' logo.

Director Lexi Alexander said that she was against using the Skull emblem on Ray Stevenson's costume. However, fans wanted it to be more prominent than it was in the 2004 film. She described this design as "pre-schoolish" in an interview and eventually compromised with a degraded and worn skull image (similar to the 2004 movie).

The character 'Maginty' comes from the Punisher story arc "Kitchen Irish" and the character 'Cristu Balat' comes from the story arc "The Slavers."

The Punisher movies are distributed by Lionsgate Films, who also distribute the Saw movies. Both movie series feature a homicidal villain nicknamed "Jigsaw" and both feature Julie Benz.

The character Budiansky (Colin Salmon) was taken from the graphic novel Widowmaker.

The Shield writer Kurt Sutter wrote an R-rated draft that according to him "taking the Punisher character out of the comic books" and putting him into a real world drama set in the streets of New York. At the very last minute, the studio decided to revert back to Nick Santora's comic-book style script with the intention of creating a sequel from that. Disgusted with the actions by the studio, Sutter was offered a story credit, but refused, and demanded that his name omitted from the final credits.

After the release of The Punisher (2004), a sequel came in development. Both Thomas Jane (The 2004 Punisher) and director of the 2004 version Jonathan Hensleigh had been interested in doing it. The sequel had been in writing stages for three years. By that time, both of them left the project, Jane stated, "What I won't do is spend months of my life sweating over a movie that I just don't believe in." After they left, Lionsgate brought in director Lexi Alexander and actor Ray Stevenson and decided to reboot the movie from the 2004 version.

The body count racked up by Ray Stevenson (The Punisher) is 81 confirmed kills, excluding the two cases where he shoots someone "on the same side."

The characters of Pittsy and Ink both appear in the Marvel MAX title The Punisher. Although they do not work for Jigsaw, they are members of the mafia.

This is the first live-action Punisher film to be set in the character's original region of operations, New York City.

Directer Lexi Alexander did uncredited writing for the film. She stated on the audio commentary that she wrote the scene where The Punisher (Ray Stevenson) is force to either kill Angela (Julie Benz) and her daughter or Mirco (Wayne Knight).