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After his 1962 breakthrough with the political thriller The Manchurian Candidate, director John Frankenheimer cemented his reputation as a paranoia filmmaker with Seven Days in May. Though the assassination of John F. Kennedy happened around the time of the film's release, Seven Days remained ahead of its time, as the conspiracy-film genre wouldn't fully flourish until the 1970s. The determinedly realistic screenplay was written by Rod Serling, who was also responsible for the television series The Twilight Zone, as well as the scripts for Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) and Planet of the Apes (1968). Burt Lancaster made five films with Frankenheimer in the 1960s, and Seven Days added to his string of hits.