Creator Scott Peters originally titled the series 'A Light in the Sky,' but decided to play around with numbers instead and settled on '4400' simply because it sounded cool and was a nicely round number with two 4s and two 0s.

The 4400 was the only series ever produced from a television deal between American Zoetrope, the production company owned by Francis Ford Coppola's family, and Viacom, which had been signed in 2000.

Although set in Seattle, Washington, the series was actually filmed in the Vancouver, British Columbia area, including locations like Buntzen Lake in Coquitlam (used as Highland Beach) and the University of British Columbia's Life Sciences Centre (used as HaspelCorp).

The fictional 4400 Center's address given on a postcard matches the real-world address of the Chan Centre in Vancouver, the building actually used to portray it on screen.

Production of the third season shot in Vancouver until July 26, 2006, and actor Billy Campbell, who played Jordan Collier, took most of that season off to sail around the world, only returning for the final four episodes.

The show's theme song, 'A Place in Time,' was written by Robert Phillips and Tim Paruskewitz and performed by Amanda Abizaid; an instrumental version by the Landau Orchestra appears on the soundtrack but was never actually used in the series.

Dido's 'Life for Rent' was used in the episode 'The Gospel According to Collier' despite not being included on the official soundtrack release, while the Pixies' 'Where Is My Mind?' played during the series finale.

The series was cancelled in December 2007 due to a combination of the Writers Guild of America strike, budgetary problems, and lower-than-anticipated ratings, ending on a cliffhanger; a planned reboot at The CW premiered in October 2021 but was cancelled after just one season.