"Empty Days" is an adaptation of the novel "Hoje está um dia morto", by the brazilian writer André de Leones. The novel won the Sesc Literary Prize and was published in Brazil in 2006 by Record publishing house. Robney Bruno Almeida read the novel when it came out and met the author to secure the movie rights. He took ten years to raise the money for the production. "Empty Days" was shot in Silvânia, a very small town in the Brazilian Midwest where Leones grew up and the novel is set.