Production
In October 1997, it was reported that Wayne Kramer sold the original spec screenplay of Mindhunters to 20th Century Fox for a low to mid six figure sum following a bidding war that included Miramax, New Line Cinema and Live Entertainment. The script was described as being Ten Little Indians set amongst a group of FBI criminal profilers one of whom is a Serial killer. In May 1999, it was reported that Mindhunters was now at Warner Bros. based Outlaw Productions and the script was being rewritten by Kevin Brodbin. In December 2001, Dimension Films acquired North American distribution rights for the film which would begin filming in January the following year with Renny Harlin directing. The title of his screenplay was originally called Unsub (Unknown Subject), but Fox executives preferred the title Mindhunters and changed it before the deal was announced to the entertainment press. Kramer never felt comfortable with the title change because there was already a non-fiction book by John Douglas called Mindhunter.
Renny Harlin was originally attached to direct the film adaptation of A Sound of Thunder based on Ray Bradbury's short story, but left to helm this movie instead. Gerard Butler was set to the play the role of Lucas Harper, but dropped out to star in Timeline. Ryan Phillippe was also considered for the part before Jonny Lee Miller eventually signed on. Phillippe's then-wife, Reese Witherspoon, was offered to play Sara Moore, but she turned it down and Kathryn Morris was later cast. Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen and Gary Busey were all offered the part of Jake Harris, but they rejected the film before Val Kilmer agreed to do the movie.
Mindhunters was filmed entirely in the Netherlands. Locations included Amsterdam (Amsterdam-Noord), The Hague, Delft, beach town Zandvoort, training village of the Police Academy in Ossendrecht and Radio Kootwijk on the Veluwe heath lands in the Gelderland province. Post-production of the film was moved to England to decrease the budget. Filming and production went from January to September 2002, yet the film was not released until 2004 (2005 in the US). During the editing process, Harlin toned down much of the violence, in order to secure a PG-13 rating in the United States, yet the MPAA felt that the overall tone of the film was too dark and still issued it an R; following this Harlin reinserted the deleted scenes.
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