Black Hawk Down originally was the idea of director Simon West, who suggested to producer Jerry Bruckheimer that he buy the film rights to the book Black Hawk Down: a Story of Modern War, by Mark Bowden, with him (West) directing; in the event, West moved on, to direct Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001).

Despite Ken Nolan being credited as screenwriter, others contributed to it, uncredited; Sam Shepard (MGen. Garrison) wrote most of his dialogue; Eric Roth wrote Josh Hartnett and Eric Bana's concluding speeches; Steven Zaillian re-wrote much dialogue; Stephen Gaghan contributed to the writing of the screenplay. Composed mostly of participant accounts, Spec 4 John Stebbins became the fictional "John Grimes", because Stebbins was convicted by court martial, in 1999, for sexually assaulting his daughter.[1] Reporter Bowden said the Pentagon requested the change.[2] He wrote early screenplay drafts, before Bruckheimer gave it to a screenwriter; the PoW-Captor conversation, between pilot Mike Durant and militiaman Firimbi, is from a Bowden script draft.

For military verisimilitude, the Ranger actors took a crash, two-week Ranger course at Fort Benning, Ga.; the Delta Force actors took a two-week commando course, from the 1st Special Warfare Training Group, at Ft. Bragg, N.C. Ron Eldard and the actors playing 160th SOAR helicopter pilots were lectured by captured aviator Michael Durant at Fort Campbell, Ky. The U.S. Army supplied the matériel and the helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment; most pilots (e.g. Keith Jones, who speaks some dialogue) participated in the battle on 3-4 October 1993. Moreover, a platoon of Rangers from B-3/75 did the fast-roping scenes and were extras; though none of them had served in the original battle they have since served in both Iraq and Afghanistan.