Director Jon Turteltaub first met screenwriter Audrey Wells in 1997 after his agent, David Lonner, who also represents Audrey, suggested that they meet regarding an idea she had for an original screenplay about what it would be like for an adult to meet himself as a young child. Jon and his producing partner, Christina Steinberg, met with Audrey and immediately loved the idea. "As soon as I heard the scenario, both my partner Christina Steinberg and I loved it," says Turteltaub. "It just felt so personal. It felt like it was about me. And what’s so special about this idea is that everyone who hears it feels it’s unique and personal to them."
"Both Jon and I immediately related to the concept of meeting yourself as a young kid," adds producer Steinberg. "The thought of meeting yourself when you were age eight is so appealing, and the question of ‘would you be happy with who you turned out to be’ is something I think every single person will be able to relate to and inevitably ask themselves at least one time in their lives."
Screenwriter Audrey Wells credits a Saturday afternoon reverie in a Los Angeles park with the inspiration for her uniquely comic and thought-provoking script. "This is a very personal script for me that really came out of questions I was asking myself about where I had been and where I wanted to go," says Wells, the writer behind the Janeane Garofalo comedy "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" and the writer/director of the acclaimed independent film "Guinevere" starring Stephen Rea. "I had the idea about ten years ago, but did not start writing it until a couple of years ago, after I moved to Los Angeles. I was sitting out in Palisades Park wondering what I was going to be like in ten years, which was the start of this fanciful idea—that one had a past self and a future self that might sort of exist on some strange timeline, and what if you could actually communicate with your past or future self. That kind of whimsical notion became the basis of the story."
Following their initial meeting with Wells, Turteltaub and Steinberg pitched the idea to Disney, who in turn, commissioned Audrey to write the script. The screenwriting process evolved over the next two years, while Turteltaub directed "Instinct" for Touchstone Pictures and Wells wrote and directed the independent feature film "Guinevere" for Miramax. During this time, Turteltaub asked Hunt Lowry, one of the producers of "Instinct," who also produced several high profile films including "The Last of the Mohicans," "A Time to Kill" and "My Life," to come aboard to produce the film along with himself and Christina Steinberg. "I was working with Jon and Christina on "Instinct" when they pitched me the idea for this film they had been developing," said Lowry. "It took them about three minutes to tell me the idea, and two minutes for me to agree to do it with them."
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