The film began in 1992 as a planned sequel to Total Recall (1990), with Arnold Schwarzenegger set to reprise his role, before Carolco Pictures went bankrupt and the project was reworked into a standalone story.

Novelist Jon Cohen was hired in 1997 to write a script originally meant to be directed by Dutch filmmaker Jan de Bont, and Tom Cruise passed the script to Steven Spielberg, who felt it needed further development.

Screenwriter Scott Frank reworked Cohen's draft, removing the character of Senator Malcolm and adding Lamar Burgess as the villain, while also rewriting Danny Witwer from a villain into a heroic character closer to his role in the original short story.

Because the original screenplay bore similarities to an earlier draft by Gary Goldman and Ron Shusett, a Writers Guild arbitration was held; Goldman and Shusett did not receive writing credit but were listed as executive producers.

Spielberg originally wanted a different supporting cast, offering roles to Matt Damon (Witwer), Meryl Streep (Iris Hineman), Ian McKellen (Burgess), Cate Blanchett (Agatha), and Jenna Elfman (Lara); all declined or dropped out due to scheduling conflicts, and Javier Bardem also turned down the Witwer role.

Cameron Diaz, Cameron Crowe, and Paul Thomas Anderson make uncredited cameo appearances as subway passengers in the film.

To keep the budget under $100 million, Cruise and Spielberg agreed to forgo upfront salaries in favor of each taking 15% of the film's gross profits.

Minority Report was the first film to use an entirely digital 'previz' (previsualization) production design process, employing Photoshop and 3D animation software like Maya and XSI to plan shots before filming.

Visual effects supervisor Henry LaBounta designed the spider-like 'Spyder' robots by drawing inspiration from deep-sea jellyfish, giving them bioluminescent-style lights running along their tentacle-like legs.

Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński shot the film in high-speed Super 35 to increase grain and used a bleach bypass process in post-production, reducing color saturation by about 40% to give the film its distinctive washed-out, film-noir look.

Composer John Williams drew inspiration from Bernard Herrmann's film noir scores rather than typical science fiction music, and incorporated classical pieces by Schubert, Haydn, and Tchaikovsky, though Williams said the studio chose those classical selections.

Spielberg convened a three-day 'think tank summit' in 1999 with fifteen experts, including architects, computer scientists, and futurists, to help design a scientifically plausible vision of the year 2054 rather than a typical sci-fi setting.