The Luc Besson film contains examples of:
- Adaptation Overdosed: The film has inspired two remakes: the Hong Kong movie Black Cat (1991) and the American Bridget Fonda star vehicle Point of No Return (1993) as well as two television series: USA Network's La Femme Nikita and Nikita of The CW. There's even an indirect Korean remake titled The Villainess, which itself is also getting an American TV adaptation.
- Dawson Casting: 30-year old Anne Parillaud playing teenage junkie Nikita.
- Fake Nationality: Like most characters in the film, Bob is French but he's played by the Turkish-Greek Tchéky Karyo, unlike the actors.
- Playing Against Type: Jean Reno uncharacteristically plays a very unhinged and malevolent character.
- Referenced by...:
- The remote controlled missile launcher in Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is called the "Nikita" as it's Hideo Kojima's favorite Luc Besson movie.
- This
production art of Ada Wong in Resident Evil 4 is an homage to Nikita's poster, as both characters are deadly female spies.
- What Could Have Been:
- At one point, Hollywood was interested in the script. The studio wanted either Mickey Rourke or Christopher Walken to play Bob, but Besson promised Tchéky Karyo the role.
- According to Besson and Olivier Megaton, the proposed film Mathilda would have placed The Professional and Nikita in the same universe with specific references to characters and events from those movies. Since Besson was estranged from Gaumont after the failure of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc and the company held the intellectual rights to both properties, the script became the movie Colombiana with Zoe Saldaña in the lead role
The CW TV series contains examples of:
- Fake American: Canadian Michelle Nolden plays American president Kathleen Spencer. Actors Devon Sawa (Owen), Alberta Watson (Madeline), and Dillon Casey (Sean) are also Canadian.
- Fake Russian: American Lyndsy Fonseca (Alex) and Canadian Peter Outerbridge (Ari Tasarov) play Russians.
- Fake Nationality: Lyndie Greenwood, a Canadian, plays Sonya, who's from an unspecified East African country.
- Friday Night Death Slot: Unfortunately, this is most of the reason why Nikita was at one point CW's lowest rated show.
- Romance on the Set: Lyndsy Fonseca (Alex) and Noah Bean (Ryan) met and began dating while on the show. They married in October of 2016. Amusingly, a season one episode early into Noah/Ryan's role has Alex commenting that he's cute.
