It was originally to have a PS3 and Xbox 360 game of the movie to be made, but was cancelled after its video game developer Darkwoods was shut down.
When Fidélité bought the rights to the novel in 2002, It was originally going to be a live-action adaptation of the book, But the violence of the plot and film, hard to cast actual American actors for the film and the costs of a New York shoot posed problems for the movie. until in 2007 after the success of Renaissance, Fidélité decided a decision was taken to move towards animation to make the violence more elliptical and introduce elements of a fantasy film (beyond their fabulous intelligence, the prodigies also have the power to control other people's bodies). Onyx Films then came on board as executive co-producer. Aiming for a style somewhere between US comics and Japanese manga, the producers hired two top illustrators from Marvel (Humberto Ramos and Francisco Herrera) to work on the designs for the characters, and asked Viktor Antonov (known for his work on the video game Half Life 2) took care of the visual backdrop. Antonov decided to draw inspiration from The French Connection, Mean Streets and Taxi Driver in particular, but also from Edward Hopper's paintings for the setting of New York City for the animated film. Several concepts were also foisted on the narrative like the backdrop which becomes blurred when the characters' emotions are very intense. In the end, the production team decided to do the animation in Mocap (motion capture) to retain the impact and dynamics of human actors without the constraints of hyperrealism.
It was originally surpose to be animated at Attitude Studio in Luxembourg until it got bankruptcy and shut down in 2009 until it was moved to DQ Entertainment in India.
In Jimbo's mental hospital room, you can posters of The Offspring: Greatest Hits, Seven (1995), The Matrix (1999) and Daredevil (2003) in his room as they are visible in the background.