Among the massive trove of leaked e-mails that were released in 2014 after Sony's computer systems were hacked were some that revealed that Sony executives were extremely critical of this movie's quality and pessimistic about its box-office prospects long before it was filmed or released. In one of the e-mails, Amy Pascal (then the co-chair of Sony Pictures Entertainment) wrote that many aspects of the movie's characters and plot made "no sense. I'm never starting a movie again when the script is ridiculous, and we all know it. I don't care how much I love the director or the actors. It never, not even once, ever works. As much as I want movies (to release), this is way worse. At least the marketing departments at both studios have something to sell that looks big and glossy. We have this movie in for a lot of dough, and we better look at that. Scott Rudin didn't once go to the set. Or help us in the editing room. Or fix the script."
Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele (The King) is the Hawaiian nationalist leader and titular head of state of the group Nation of Hawai'i in real life.
At the 2019 Golden Globe awards, presenter Sandra Oh quipped that Crazy Rich Asians (2018) "is the first major film with an Asian-American lead since Ghost in the Shell (2017) and Aloha" (a pointed reference to the casting of Scarlett Johansson and Emma Stone). Stone could be heard calling from the audience "I'm sorry!"
Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon were both attached to star, but left due to scheduling conflicts. Cameron Crowe then spent four years re-writing the script, making the characters younger.
A quote from Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray's character from Ghostbusters (1984)), "Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown," can be heard during the audio montage from the satellite.