Development
Writer Jack Stanley completed the first draft of the screenplay in 2018. Director Max Minghella was reportedly taken by the "imaginative, quite abstract" script, even if it contained elements he didn't expect to resonate with him like body horror and bold imagery. "It wasn’t in its DNA, something that I normally associate with my taste, and yet, there was something about it that I found deeply memorable, and it really sort of stayed with me,” he stated. Minghella produced his own draft and then re-wrote it with Stanley, "evolving it into his vision of the movies he loved as a kid".
In July 2020, it was announced Minghella would direct the film from Stanley's script, with Fred Berger, Brian Kavanaugh, and Alicia Van Couvering producing. HBO Max was set to produce and distribute the film.
However, several delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down the project's development.
In May 2023, Elisabeth Moss, Kate Hudson and Kaia Gerber joined the cast of the film, with Moss set to produce under her Love & Squalor Pictures banner, and HBO Max no longer attached.
Production was delayed again by the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike but key cast & crew members confirmed their commitment to work on the film as soon as the strike was resolved.
In February 2024, Arian Moayed, Lionel Boyce, Este Haim, Ziwe Fumudoh, Peter MacNicol, Blake Lee, Dustin Milligan, Peri Gilpin and Mary Lynn Rajskub were announced to be cast in the film with Dark Castle Entertainment boarding on as a financer and co-producer, when shooting had just wrapped.
On March 24, at the Academy Museum's special screening of Showgirls, Elizabeth Berkley announced she had recently completed a role in an undisclosed film project. The TIFF's official program, published on August 13, revealed that the movie was Shell.
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