The characters Richard Haywood and Justin Pendleton are loosely based on real-life murderers Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold.
This is the fourth Hollywood film adaptation of the infamous 1924 Leopold-Loeb murder case. The first was Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948), the second Richard Fleischer's Compulsion (1959) and the third Tom Kalin's Swoon (1992).
Ryan Gosling was in a relationship with Sandra Bullock, having met on the set (May 2002-July 2003).
The title refers to the song "Murder by Numbers," written by Sting and Andy Summers and performed by The Police, about planning the perfect murder.
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