Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a 2002 American biographical spy film depicting the fictional life of game show host and producer Chuck Barris.

The film rights were purchased in 1997 by producer Andrew Lazar, who hired Kaufman to write a screenplay; the project then quickly attracted a string of well-known directors, including David Fincher, Brian De Palma and Bryan Singer, and lead actors, including Mike Myers, Ben Stiller and Johnny Depp.

Tired of being rejected by the beautiful women he lusts after, Chuck Barris moves to Manhattan to become an NBC page with dreams of becoming famous in television but is eventually fired.

One night after Barris is kicked out of a bar for fighting, he is approached by CIA agent Jim Byrd, who recruits him as an assassin.

Byrd reveals why he was chosen by the CIA to become an assassin: he is the son of a serial killer and had been raised as a girl by his mother, so he "fit the profile".

Barris, Dick Clark, Jim Lange, Murray Langston, Jaye P. Morgan, and Gene Patton are featured in interviews central to the storyline.

[4] McBride offered the lead role to Richard Dreyfuss, who refused to read the script because he believed Barris's morbid humor was distasteful.

[4] Producer Andrew Lazar optioned the film rights from Columbia in 1997 and set Confessions of a Dangerous Mind at Warner Bros. Pictures that same year.

Barris gave positive feedback to Kaufman's script[6] and Curtis Hanson instantly agreed to direct[7] with Sean Penn in the lead role and George Clooney and Drew Barrymore attached to co-star.

[8][9][10] Hanson eventually dropped out, but with the financial success of My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), P. J. Hogan entered discussions with Warner Bros. to direct in January 1998.

[12] However, negotiations with Hogan fell through; Sam Mendes, David Fincher and Darren Aronofsky all became interested in taking over the director's position.

However, Stiller was forced to vacate Confessions of a Dangerous Mind due to scheduling conflicts with Zoolander (2001) and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).

[8] Although Singer was interested in Sam Rockwell in the lead role,[19] the director cast Johnny Depp to replace Stiller and commenced pre-production in January 2001[20] on a planned $35 million budget.

[20] Grosvenor Park was interested in co-financing with Renaissance,[22] but the next month (February 2001), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was once again stalled in development.

Renaissance was also unable to close the financing in time to accommodate both the "production insurance" deadline and the 65-day shooting schedule,[23] which was set to primarily take place in Montreal and British Columbia, Canada.

In the end, funding for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind came from Miramax, Clooney's own Section Eight Productions, Village Roadshow Pictures, producer Andrew Lazar's Mad Chance, Allied Filmmakers, and The Kushner-Locke Company.

"[9] Because Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was his directing debut, Clooney took inspiration from friends Steven Soderbergh and the Coen brothers for his filmmaking style.

"[29] Clooney acknowledged that Kaufman's original script contained "really funky scenes that would never reach the green light of being a studio film.

"[34] Clooney cast Julia Roberts as the mysterious CIA agent Patricia Watson due to their positive working relationship in Ocean's Eleven (2001).

[37] After Rockwell's casting, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was once again briefly postponed; Miramax did not greenlight the film until Roberts signed on.

[41] The Playboy Mansion scene was shot in early April at Los Angeles, California; the remaining two weeks of production took place around the Mexico – United States border.

Hand-held cameras were used for scenes set in the 1970s,[9] an homage to the films of Sidney Lumet, Mike Nichols and Alan J. Pakula, primarily Klute (1971), Carnal Knowledge (1971), and The Parallax View (1974).

The DVD includes over 20 minutes of deleted scenes, Rockwell's three screen tests, a short documentary titled The Real Chuck Barris, Clooney's audio commentary, and a making-of featurette.

"George Clooney's directorial debut is not only intriguing as a story but great to look at," Ebert said, "a marriage of bright pop images from the 1960s and 1970s and dark, cold spyscapes that seem to have wandered in from John le Carré.

"[52][53] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine wrote that the film carried a perfect balance of dark humor and psychological drama.

"He wisely hooks up with talent he worked with as an actor: cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel, from Three Kings (1999), and editor Stephen Mirrione from Ocean's Eleven (2001).

"[55] Owen Gleiberman, writing in Entertainment Weekly, observed that "Sam Rockwell is handsome in a rumpled, slightly goofy rabbit-toothed way, but he doesn't really have the look, or aura, of a movie star," Glieberman stated.

"He's more like a weirdly sincere space cadet, babbling to himself with puppyish befuddlement, breaking into funky soft dance moves that look as if he's been doing them in his bedroom since he was 8.

He disliked the characterization of Chuck Barris and commented that "with its multiplicity of over-stylized looks and slick gimmicks, Dangerous Mind was doubtless more stimulating to direct than it will be for audiences to experience.

David Hollander and Jon Worley are signed on as showrunners and executive producers, while Justin Timberlake is attached to play Chuck Barris.