In 2008, it was announced that Paramount Pictures and Plan B Entertainment had acquired pic rights to the books Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction by David Sheff and "Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamine" by his son Nic Sheff. The studio and producers were announcing that they would use the recently published books to frame a movie about drug addiction from the perspective of a young meth addict and the father who finds himself helpless to stop his son’s downward spiral. In 2011, it was announced that Writer and Director Cameron Crowe had written a script based on the books. One year later, TheWrap announced that Crowe was looking to direct the film from his own script after he had wrapped his romantic film Aloha, with New Regency getting involved in this project after Paramount dropped out. In December 2013, it was reported that Mark Wahlberg was circling the project to play the role of the father with Crowe directing.

In 2015, Variety announced that Belgian Director Felix Van Groeningen had taken over the Director role with a new script written by Australian Writer Luke Davies. In January 2017, it was revealed Steve Carell and Will Poulter had joined the cast of the film, as the father and son, respectively. Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Brad Pitt were announced as the main producers. In February 2017, Timothée Chalamet, joined the cast of the film, replacing Poulter. In March 2017, Amy Forsyth, Ricky Low, Amy Ryan, Maura Tierney, Kaitlyn Dever and Timothy Hutton joined the cast of the film. That same month, LisaGay Hamilton joined the cast of the film. In April 2017, Christian Convery joined the cast of the film. That same month, Andre Royo joined the cast of the film.

Principal photography began on March 27, 2017 and shot through May 2017 in around Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The film is scheduled to be released on October 12, 2018.