Gary Ross had already written several Hollywood hits before he moved to the director's chair for Pleasantville. After the success of Big in 1988 and Dave in 1993, he knew he wanted to direct a film that was somehow about modern teenagers getting transported to another time. This premise came first, before Ross realized he needed to give it some kind of thematic arc; from there, he decided the film was about the liberation and coloration of a previously conformist 1950s town.
In an interview with The AV Club, Ross said, "Change is scary for everyone, as is complexity, contradiction, and an uncertain future. But hopefully, what the film says or deals with is that you have to address all those things." He wanted to tell a story about embracing the brevity and changeability of life.
Pleasantville marked the first time that a movie originally shot on film was scanned into digital format in order to manipulate the colors. This allowed editors to go through and remove the color through digital processing.
