Straczynski spent a year researching the story after hearing about the Wineville Chicken Coop case from a contact at Los Angeles City Hall. Almost all of the film's script was drawn from thousands of pages of documentation. His first draft became theshooting script and his first film screenplay to be produced. Ron Howard had meant to direct the film, but scheduling conflicts led to his replacement by Eastwood. Instead, Howard and his Imagine Entertainment partner Brian Grazer produced Changeling alongside Malpaso Productions' Robert Lorenz and Eastwood. Universal Pictures financed and distributed the film.