Screenwriter Brad Kaaya's inspiration for the script came from Shakespeare's Othello, "the spate of suburban school shootings that rocked the country in the 1980s", and his own experiences as a black teenager attending a largely white private school.[4] Tim Blake Nelson came across the script while filming Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line, and was offered the chance to direct based on his directorial debut Eye of God.[4]
Filming began in Charleston, South Carolina in early 1999[5] and wrapped that March.[6] Dimension Films, a division of Miramax, acquired the film two days into principal photography.[7]
