Production notes

John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd created the characters Jake and Elwood Blues in performances on Saturday Night Live. The name The Blues Brothers was Howard Shore's idea. Aykroyd developed the Blues Brothers' backstory and character sketches in collaboration with Ron Gwynne, who is credited as a story consultant for the film. As related in the liner notes of the band's debut album, Briefcase Full of Blues, the brothers grew up in an orphanage, learned the blues from a janitor named Curtis, and sealed their brotherhood by cutting their middle fingers with a steel string said to have come from Elmore James's guitar. Belushi had become a star in 1978 as a result of both the Blues Brothers' musical success and his role in National Lampoon's Animal House. At one point, he managed the triple feat of being the star of the week's top-grossing film and top-rated television series and singing on the Billboard 200 #1 album within a year. When Aykroyd and Belushi decided they could make a Blues Brothers film, the bidding war was intense. Universal Studios narrowly beat Paramount Pictures for the project. John Landis, who had directed Belushi in Animal House, was aboard as director. The project had neither a budget nor a script. Universal head Lew Wasserman thought the film could be made for $12 million; the filmmakers wanted $20 million. It was impossible to settle on an amount without a screenplay to review, and after Mitch Glazer declined to help him, Aykroyd wrote one on his own. Aykroyd had never written a screenplay before, as he admitted in the 1998 documentary Stories Behind the Making of The Blues Brothers, or even read one, and he was unable to find a writing partner. He put together a very detailed volume that explained the characters' origins and how the band members were recruited. His final draft was 324 pages, three times longer than a standard screenplay, written not in a standard screenplay format, but more like free verse. To soften the impact, Aykroyd made a joke of the thick script and had it bound with the cover of the Los Angeles Yellow Pages directory when he turned it in to producer Robert K. Weiss. He titled it The Return of the Blues Brothers, and credited it to "Scriptatron GL-9000". Landis was tasked with editing the script into a usable screenplay, which took him about two weeks.

At Aykroyd's demand, soul and R&B stars James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin were cast in speaking parts to support musical numbers built around them. This later caused friction in the production between Landis and Universal, as its costs far exceeded the original budget. Since none of them except Charles had had any hits in recent years, the studio wanted Landis to replace them with—or add performances by—younger acts, such as Rose Royce, whose "Car Wash" had made them disco stars after its use in the 1976 film of that name. The character portrayed by Cab Calloway is named Curtis as an homage to Curtis Salgado, an Oregon blues musician who inspired Belushi while he was in that area filming Animal House. Other musicians in the cast include Big Walter Horton, Pinetop Perkins and John Lee Hooker (who performs "Boom Boom" during the Maxwell Street scene). The members of the Blues Brothers Band were themselves notable. Steve Cropper and Donald Dunn are architects of the Stax Records sound (Cropper plays guitar at the start of the Sam & Dave song "Soul Man") and were half of Booker T. & the M.G.'s. Horn players Lou Marini, Tom Malone and Alan Rubin had all played in Blood, Sweat & Tears and the house band on Saturday Night Live. Drummer Willie Hall had played in the Bar-Kays and backed Isaac Hayes. Matt "Guitar" Murphy was a veteran blues guitarist who played with Memphis Slim and Howlin' Wolf. As the band developed at Saturday Night Live, pianist Paul Shaffer was part of the act and cast in the film, but owing to contractual obligations with SNL, he was unable to participate, so actor-musician Murphy Dunne (whose father, George Dunne, was the President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners) was hired to take his role. Over 500 extras were used for the next-to-last scene, the blockade of the building at Richard J. Daley Center, including 200 National Guardsmen, 100 state and city police officers, with 15 horses for the mounted police (and three each Sherman tanks, helicopters, and fire engines).

The film has a number of cameo appearances by established celebrities and entertainment industry figures, including Steve Lawrence as booking agent Maury Sline, Twiggy as a "chic lady" in a Jaguar convertible whom Elwood propositions at a gas station, Steven Spielberg as the Cook County Assessor's clerk, Landis as a state trooper in the mall chase, Joe Walsh as the first prisoner to jump up on a table in the final scene and Chaka Khan as the soloist in the Triple Rock choir. Muppet performer Frank Oz plays a corrections officer, and in the scene where the brothers crash into Toys "R" Us, the customer who asks for a Miss Piggy doll is played by stunt coordinator Gary McLarty. Singer/songwriter Stephen Bishop is an Illinois state trooper who complains that Jake and Elwood broke his watch (a result of the car chase in the mall). Makeup artist Layne "Shotgun" Britton is the old card player who asks Elwood, "Did you get me my Cheez Whiz, boy?" Prior to becoming well known for the character Pee-wee Herman, Paul Reubens had a role as a Chez Paul waiter with one spoken line ("We have a Dom Pérignon '71 at $120.")

Principal photography began in July 1979, with the film's budget still not settled. For the first month, things ran smoothly on and off the set. When Weiss saw the supposedly final $17.5 million budget, he reportedly joked, "I think we've spent that much already." In the next month, the production began falling behind schedule. Much of the delay was due to Belushi's partying and carousing. When not on set, he went out to his familiar Chicago haunts such as Wrigley Field and the Old Town Ale House. People often recognized him and slipped him cocaine, a drug he was already using heavily on his own, hoping to use it with him. "Every blue-collar Joe wants his John Belushi story," said Smokey Wendell, who was eventually hired to keep it away from the star. As a result of his late nights and drug and alcohol use, Belushi often missed unit calls (the beginning of a production day) or went to his trailer after them to sleep, wasting hours of production time. One night, Aykroyd found him crashing on the sofa of a nearby house, where Belushi had already helped himself to food in the refrigerator. Cocaine was already so prevalent on the set (like many other film productions of that era) that Aykroyd, who used far less than Belushi, claims a section of the budget was actually set aside for purchases of the drug during night shooting. The stars had a private bar, the Blues Club, built on the set, for themselves, crew, and friends. Carrie Fisher, Aykroyd's girlfriend at the time, said that most of the bar's staff doubled as dealers, procuring any drug patrons desired. The movie's original budget was quickly surpassed, and Wasserman grew increasingly frustrated. He was regularly confronting Ned Tanen, the executive in charge of production for Universal, over the costs. Sean Daniel, another studio executive, was not reassured when he came to Chicago and saw the production had set up a special facility for the 70 cars used in the chase sequences. Filming there, which was supposed to have concluded in the middle of September, continued into late October. On the set, Belushi's drug use worsened. Fisher, who herself later struggled with cocaine addiction, said Landis told her to keep Belushi away from the drug. Wendell was hired to clear any drugs from the places Belushi visited off-camera. Nevertheless, at one point, Landis found Belushi with what he described as a "mountain" of cocaine on a table in his trailer, which led to a tearful confrontation in which Belushi admitted his addiction and feared it could eventually kill him. After Aykroyd and Belushi's wife Judy talked to Belushi, the production returned to Los Angeles. Filming there again ran smoothly until it came time to shoot the final sequence at the Hollywood Palladium. Just beforehand, Belushi fell off a borrowed skateboard and seriously injured his knee, making it unlikely he could shoot the scene, which required him to sing, dance and do cartwheels. Wasserman persuaded the city's top orthopedic surgeon to postpone his weekend plans long enough to anesthetize Belushi's knee, and the scene was filmed as intended.

Much of The Blues Brothers was shot on location in and around Chicago between July and October 1979, including Joliet Correctional Center in nearby Joliet, Illinois, and Wauconda, Illinois, where the car crashes into the side of Route 12. Made with the cooperation of Mayor Jane M. Byrne, it is credited for putting Chicago on the map as a venue for filmmaking. In an article written to mark the film's 25th anniversary DVD release, Aykroyd told the Chicago Sun-Times: "Chicago is one of the stars of the movie. We wrote it as a tribute."

The first traffic stop was in Park Ridge, Illinois. The shopping mall car chase was filmed in the real, albeit shuttered, Dixie Square Mall, in Harvey, Illinois. The bridge jump was filmed on an actual drawbridge, the 95th Street bridge over the Calumet River, on Chicago's southeast side. The main entrance to Wrigley Field (and its sign reading "Save lives Drive safely Prevent fires") makes a brief appearance when the Illinois Nazis visit it after Elwood registers the ballpark's address, 1060 West Addison, as his home address on his driver's license. (Elwood's Illinois driver's license number is an almost-valid encoded number, with Aykroyd's own birth date embedded.) Jake's final confrontation with his girlfriend was filmed in a replica of a section of the abandoned Chicago freight tunnel system. The other chase scenes included lower Wacker Drive, Lake Street and Richard J. Daley Center. In the final car chase scene, the production actually dropped a Ford Pinto, representing the one driven by the Illinois Nazis, from a helicopter at an altitude of about 1,200 feet—and had to gain a Special Airworthiness Certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration to do it. The FAA was concerned that the car could prove too aerodynamic in a high-altitude drop and pose a threat to nearby buildings. The shot leading up to the car drop, where the Illinois Nazis drive off a freeway ramp, was shot in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, near the Hoan Bridge on Interstate 794. The Lake Freeway (North) was a planned but not completed six-lane freeway and I-794 contained an unfinished ramp off which the Nazis drove. Several Milwaukee skyscrapers are visible in the background as the Bluesmobile flips over, notably the U.S. Bank Center.

The Palace Hotel Ballroom, where the band performs their climactic concert, was at the time of filming a country club, but later became the South Shore Cultural Center, named after the Chicago neighborhood where it is located. The interior concert scenes were filmed in the Hollywood Palladium. The filming in downtown Chicago was conducted on Sundays during the summer of 1979, and much of downtown was cordoned off from the public. Costs for filming the largest scene in the city's history totaled $3.5 million. Permission was given after Belushi and Aykroyd offered to donate $50,000 to a charity after filming. Although the Bluesmobile was allowed to be driven through the Daley Center lobby, special breakaway panes were temporarily substituted for the normal glass in the building. The speeding car caused $7,650 in damage to 35 granite paver stones and a bronze air grille in the building. Interior shots of the elevator, staircase, and assessor's office were all recreated in a film set for filming.

The film used 13 different cars bought at auction from the California Highway Patrol to depict the retired 1974 Mount Prospect, Illinois, Dodge Monaco patrol car. The vehicles were outfitted by the studio to do particular driving chores: some were customized for speed and others for jumps, depending on the scene. For the large car chases, filmmakers purchased 60 police cars at $400 each, and most were destroyed at the completion of the filming. More than 40 stunt drivers were hired, and the crew kept a 24-hour body shop to repair cars. For the scene when the brothers finally arrive at the Richard J. Daley Center, a mechanic took several months to rig the car to fall apart. At the time of its release, The Blues Brothers held the world record for the most cars destroyed in one film.

Landis' difficulties continued even after principal photography ended. The first cut of The Blues Brothers lasted two and a half hours, with an intermission. After one early screening, Wasserman demanded it be shortened and 20 minutes were cut. The film's final budget was $27.5 million (equivalent to $107 million in 2025), $10 million over its original budget. Prospects for a successful release did not look good. Aykroyd and Belushi had left SNL at the end of the fourth season, reducing their bankability. Belushi's fame had taken a further hit after the critical failure of Spielberg's film 1941 at the end of the year. One day after the editing was done, Wasserman invited Landis up to his office to speak with Ted Mann, head of the Mann Theatres chain, which dominated film exhibition in the Western United States. He told Landis that he would not book the film at any theaters in predominantly white neighborhoods, such as Westwood. Not only did Mann not want black patrons going there to see the film, but he also surmised that white viewers were unlikely to see a film featuring older black musical stars. Ultimately, the film got less than half the bookings nationwide for its initial release than a typical big-budget studio film of the era, which did not bode well for its box-office success.

The Blues Brothers opened on June 20, 1980, in 594 theaters. It took in $4,858,152, ranking second for that week (after The Empire Strikes Back). The film in total grossed $57,229,890 domestically and $58,000,000 in foreign box office for a total of $115,229,890. It ranked 10th at the domestic box office for the year. By genre, it is the ninth-highest-grossing musical and the 10th-highest earner among comedy road movies. It ranks second, between Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2, among films adapted from Saturday Night Live sketches. Landis claimed The Blues Brothers was also the first American film to gross more money overseas than it did in the U.S. Over the years, the film has retained a cult following and earned additional revenue through television, home video, and cinema reruns.

The Blues Brothers received mostly positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 72% rating, based on 92 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Too over the top for its own good, but ultimately rescued by the cast's charm, director John Landis' grace, and several soul-stirring musical numbers." It won the Golden Reel Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Sound Effects and Foley for Feature Film, is 14th on Total Film magazine's "List of the 50 Greatest Comedy Films of All Time," 20th on Empire's list of "The 50 Greatest Comedies", and 69th on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" list. Metacritic gave the film a score of 60 based on 12 reviews. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave The Blues Brothers three out of four, praising its energetic musical numbers and "incredible" car chases. Ebert wrote, "Belushi and Aykroyd come over as hard-boiled city guys, total cynics with a world-view of sublime simplicity, and that all fits perfectly with the movie's other parts. There's even room, in the midst of the carnage and mayhem, for a surprising amount of grace, humor, and whimsy." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film a "rare four-star rating", calling it "one of the all-time great comedies" and "the best movie ever made in Chicago". He called the film "technically superb", praised it for "countering every explosion with a quiet moment", and said it "is at once a pure exercise in physical comedy as well as a marvelous tribute to the urban blues sound". He ranked it eighth on his list of the ten best films of 1980. Richard Corliss wrote in Time, "The Blues Brothers is a demolition symphony that works with the cold efficiency of a Moog synthesizer gone sadistic." In his review for The Washington Post, Gary Arnold said Landis "has engorged the frail plot of The Blues Brothers with car chases and crack-ups, filmed with such avid, humorless starkness on the streets of Chicago that comic sensations are virtually obliterated". Janet Maslin of The New York Times criticized The Blues Brothers for shortchanging viewers on details about Jake and Elwood's affinity for African-American culture. She also took Landis to task for "distracting editing", mentioning the Soul Food diner scene in which saxophonist Marini's head is out of shot most of the time as he dances on the counter. In the documentary, Stories Behind the Making of The Blues Brothers, Landis acknowledges the criticism, and says, "Everybody has his opinion", and Marini recalls the dismay he felt at watching the scene. Kim Newman, writing for Empire in 2013, called The Blues Brothers "an amalgam of urban sleaze, automobile crunch and blackheart rhythm and blues" with "better music than any film had had for many years". He noted that Belushi and Aykroyd pack in their heroes: "Aretha storming through 'Think', Cab Calloway cruising through 'Minnie the Moocher', John Lee Hooker boogying through 'Boom Boom' and Ray Charles on electric piano", and observed that "the picture had revived the careers of virtually all the musicians that appeared in it", concluding, "it still sounds great and looks as good as ever through Ray Bans". On the 30th anniversary of the film's release, L'Osservatore Romano (the daily newspaper of Vatican City State) wrote that the film is filled with positive symbolism and moral references that can be related to Catholicism, adding that The Blues Brothers "is a memorable film, and, judging by the facts, a Catholic one". Robert Prevost, future Pope Leo XIV and Chicago native, was a fan of the movie when it released in the 1980s. Photos of Leo when he was in seminary dressed in the Blues Brothers' signature fedora and sunglasses with a clerical collar were included in a documentary released by the Vatican.

The Blues Brothers has become a staple of late-night cinema, even slowly morphing into an audience-participation show in its regular screenings at the Valhalla Cinema, in Melbourne, Australia. Landis acknowledged the support of the cinema and the fans by a phone call he made to the cinema at the 10th-anniversary screening, and later invited regular attendees to make cameo appearances in Blues Brothers 2000. The fans act as the members of the crowd during the performance of "Ghost Riders in the Sky". In August 2005, a 25th-anniversary celebration for The Blues Brothers was held at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. Attendees included Landis, former Universal Studios executive Thom Mount, film editor George Folsey Jr., and cast members James Brown, Henry Gibson, Charles Napier, Steve Cropper and Stephen Bishop. It featured a press conference, a panel discussion Aykroyd joined by satellite, and a screening of the film's original theatrical version. The panel discussion was broadcast directly to many other cinemas around the country. The cult-like popularity of The Blues Brothers has also spread to non-English-language markets such as Japan; it was an inspiration for Japanese companies Studio Hibari and Aniplex, which led to the creation of the manga and anime franchise Nerima Daikon Brothers, which contain heavy references to the film. In 2026, the Blues Brothers joined Cookie Monster and other titularly colored characters for Universal Studios Japan's musical Ultimate Blues Bash, a concert featuring characters owned by Universal Studios which includes songs from the Blues Brothers movie.

AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – nominated AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs: "Think" – nominated AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes: "We're on a mission from God." – nominated