The film is based on Matthew Logelin's 2011 memoir Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss and Love, which recounts his experience raising his daughter after his wife's sudden death.

A television film adaptation of the memoir was first developed in 2012 by Marta Kauffman, Denise Di Novi and Allison Greenspan for the Lifetime network, but this version never moved forward.

In 2015 the project was announced as a theatrical film titled Two Kisses for Maddy with Channing Tatum attached to star and produce, before Kevin Hart replaced him in January 2019 when the film was retitled Fatherhood.

Director Paul Weitz wrote his own draft of the screenplay in addition to the version co-written with original screenwriter Dana Stevens.

The film moved distributors during development, shifting from TriStar Pictures to Columbia Pictures around the time the main cast was finalized in mid-2019.

Fatherhood's theatrical release date was postponed multiple times over more than a year, moving from April 2020 to January 2021, then to October 2020, then April 2021, before finally being redirected to streaming.

Originally slated for a Sony Pictures theatrical release, the film was sold to Netflix during the COVID-19 pandemic and released digitally on June 18, 2021.

Fatherhood became the most-watched title on Netflix in its opening weekend, and within a week of release was reported to be on track for 61 million household views in its first month.