This was Robert Pattinson's first film he worked on after finishing shooting Crepúsculo, la saga: Amanecer (parte 2) (2012). He stated that the experience of working with David Cronenberg and having the film premiere at Cannes made him realize that he could pursue independent projects helmed by auteur directors, because he didn't think he was good or worthy enough to act in auteur cinema before.
David Cronenberg wrote the script in six days. He has admitted that when he converted the book into screenplay format on his computer, he realized it was so perfect that his only work was to separate dialogs from narration.
In one scene, a public display shows the text, "A SPECTER IS HAUNTING THE WORLD. CAPITALISM." This is a take-off on "A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of communism." which is the opening line of the political pamphlet "The Communist Manifesto", published 1848 by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
David Cronenberg shot the scenes in chronological order. In the making-of documentary accompanying the film on DVD, the actors all appear in the same order as they appear in the movie.
Colin Farrell was originally cast but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with his movie El vengador del futuro (2012). He was replaced by Robert Pattinson.