Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die Director Gore Verbinski Explains Why His Sci-Fi Villain Is Different From Skynet [Exclusive]

Man, what a time to release a movie like "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die." If sci-fi has traditionally reflected our biggest and most pressing concerns of the day, then director Gore Verbinski's latest might as well be the embodiment of a flashing neon sign. Clearly, the idea of artificial intelligence in movies plays very differently in the year 2026 than at practically any time in the past — particularly when the rising popularity of generative AI has led to Prime Video using inaccurate AI slop to recap "Fallout" episodes, concerns about artists' rights coming under fire, and Disney torching its own legacy by making a deal with OpenAI, a company whose primary product is built on theft.

Given how pervasive this technology has become in everyday life, how could any storyteller hope to bring something new to the table? That's precisely the question I had in mind during a recent spoiler-free interview with Verbinski over Zoom for "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die." When the director got his hands on the script by Matthew Robinson, he knew exactly how to approach it and make this once-futuristic issue into a startlingly contemporary one. As he told me, this meant making things a little more relevant:

"When I first read the screenplay, it was in 2020 and it was written — I think the date on that draft was 2017. Matthew's original draft had some AI antagonists in it, but was by no means where we ended up. That was the brunt of the work we did, that and some work on Sam [Rockwell's character's] backstory. But my personal belief in watching and contemporizing that, how AI is infused into our society, it's not a thing that's going to occur in the future, it's a thing that's occurring right now."

It should come as no surprise that Gore Verbinski, the man who successfully turned a theme park ride into one of the most successful blockbuster trilogies of all time in "Pirates of the Caribbean" and subsequently used his clout to make an original horror gem like "A Cure for Wellness," didn't hesitate to put his own spin on the anti-AI subgenre. Many mere mortals would've flinched at the notion of competing with the likes of "The Matrix" or "Terminator" in the hearts and minds of audiences. Not Verbinski, who went out of his way to add a fascinating twist to "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" and its central villain.

The director clued me in to how he decided to tackle this tricky topic and differentiate his story from the obvious hallmarks that have come before. As Verbinski explained, it had to do with the motivations of his AI antagonist:

"So dealing with that led me to this idea that, 'Well, what if it isn't some Skynet, HAL [9000] killing machine? What if it's much, much worse? It wants us to like it. It's going to demand that we like it.' That fact that it's being born as it's tasked to keep us engaged, I think is really going to mean it's sort of inheriting our worst attributes. So creating a villain who just wants you to like it, [who's] just like, 'Why don't you like me?', I think that's really what makes the film stand out."

That certainly takes on added meaning in an era with creepy, people-pleasing AI chatbots and anti-AI shows like "Pluribus." "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" hits theaters on February 13, 2026.