The Silk Road is a real story about an online black market for illegal drugs, fake driver's licenses, child pornography, stolen credit cards, assassinations (yes, really), and firearms of any kind. Created by Ross William Ulbricht under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts," it operated on the Darknet, an area of the Internet that many people will never see due to restrictive access. Such sites found on the Darknet aren't catalogued by web searches, making access more difficult. Founded in February 2011, it operated until an FBI shut down and arrest of Ulbricht in October 2013. During that time, around ten thousand sales were made using bitcoin, with an estimated $15 million USD of goods were traded annually. After the arrest, Silk Road revived as a 2.0 system, before being shut down by Europol. Silk Road 3 Reloaded exists and is still running, but it isn't believed to sell on the level of its previous two iterations.

The film itself is based on a Wired article, which is where the original story broke for many people. The author of the article, Joshua Bearman, will contribute to the film.

The Coen Brothers have written for films by other directors in the past. They scripted Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies, and George Clooney's upcoming Suburbicon. So far, Dark Web lacks a director. The film is expected to release in 2018.