Mimic, directed, and written by Guillermo del Toro is based off of a short story that shares its namesake. To match this, the Miramax studio planned on releasing Mimic as part of a 3-film group of 30-minute short stories. However, it was expanded into a full-length movie, whose production led to immense conflict between director and studio. Whilst in production there were a variety of writers working on the film. Furthermore when the film was nearing completion, the studio removed del Toro’s ability to contribute to the final edit and used a second film crew to record new scenes. This damaged the exposition and motifs that del Toro had created within the movie, which led to del Toro disowning the final version of the movie. In response to this in 2011, Toro choose to release a director's cut of the movie. However, after making the movie, in an interview with the Independent, del Toro said "I learned to make my camera more fluid, more a storytelling character; it really helped me develop the language that now I practice on The Shape Of Water. It taught me to edit every day because I was always expecting to be fired. I’ll have a cut of the movie six days after wrap." (Macnab). This demonstrates that the film, del Toros first in English, was a pivotal part of his career and played an important role in shaping who the now critically acclaimed director is today. Furthermore, after releasing the director's cut of the movie, del Toro's perspective about Mimic changed significantly, with del Toro saying in an interview, "I love this cut. It’s not the movie I wanted to make, and we never shot the ending I wanted, but I love this cut. It’s a good version of the movie we made, and I’m proud of it." (Lambie).

The original 2-page short story was written by Donald A Wolheim. Wolheim who is widely credited to be a leading influence on the evolution of science fiction within the 20th century United States, wrote the story in 1942, during World War 2, and it was published in the 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories. The story uses a minimalist approach to tell the story of what would happen if insects evolved to mimic human beings, with one insect living in a human community undiscovered until its death. The short story was likely influenced by the ongoing war, which saw human conflict at a previously unprecedented level.