Avi Lerner was born in Haifa on October 13, 1947, and grew up on Hatzionut Boulevard. He joined the Israeli army in 1966 and served in the Six-Day War and in the Paratroopers Brigade. In an interview with Pnai Plus Lerner said he took part in the battle for the town of Rafah before penetrating as far as the Suez Canal. He served in the 1973 Yom Kippur War as a reservist.

The bulk of Lerner's films featured action stars who were at their peak in the 1980s–1990s: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Wesley Snipes and Dolph Lundgren, usually released as direct-to-video. Lerner produced Rambo starring Sylvester Stallone, and Righteous Kill starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino for Millennium Films and Emmett/Furla Films. He produced The Expendables, directed by Stallone.

Lerner originally worked in movie theaters in Tel Aviv but later relocated to South Africa, where he produced several films and also owned a chain of movie theaters until relocating once again to Los Angeles in the early 1990s. In 1991, he served as President of the independent production/distribution company, Global Pictures.

Nu Image and Millennium Films bought independent film studio First Look Studios in 2007 and have restructured the organization to distribute their specialty films.

Until his success with The Expendables (2010), Lerner's reputation was of a B movie Producer. Lerner has complained that Israel is the only country where his work is criticized, and he avoids giving interviews to Israeli reporters.

On February 2, 2018, Hollywood actor Terry Crews publicly accused Avi Lerner of making a phone call to his manager in which he says Avi Learner threatened to introduce difficulties into Terry Crews' career unless Crews dropped his case against Hollywood Talent Agency 'William Morris Endeavor', employers of agent and founding member Adam Venti. Terry Crews had previously accused Adam Venti of sexual assault.