"Burn After Reading" was the first original screenplay penned by Joel and Ethan Coen since their 2001 film, "The Man Who Wasn't There". Ethan Coen compared "Burn After Reading" to the Allen Drury political novel "Advise and Consent" and called it "our version of a Tony Scott/Jason Bourne kind of movie, without the explosions." Joel Coen said that they intended to create a spy film because "we hadn't done one before", but feels that the final result was more of a character-driven film than a spy story. Joel also said that "Burn After Reading" was not meant to be a comment or satire on Washington.