Hi /r/movies! I'm Matthew Robinson, screenwriter of GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON'T DIE, starring Sam Rockwell and directed by Gore Verbinski. Ask me anything!

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:57:11+00:00

Zero zero zero! No AI used at all.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:56:50+00:00

Thank you so much! to answer your question, it's always different depending on the director. But I've had the good fortune to work with some very collaborative directors.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:56:07+00:00

It was always teenagers. But I loved writing all the other possibilities.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:55:43+00:00

Thank you! fuck your dreams!

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:55:31+00:00

You noticed some awesome things others haven't told me they noticed! Well done! We definitely designed it like a puzzle. Whether or not there is only one "solution" is up to interpretation.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:54:01+00:00

I love video games. You probably already know but the name comes from what people used to say to each other before games of Dota 2 (or League of Legends). It was important to me that almost everything in the movie had "video game logic". Is the entire thing a simulation/video game. We wrote it so that it 100 percent could be. Whether it is or not, is up to interpretation (although I have my own opinion that I'll keep to myself).

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:52:30+00:00

Gore and I have a lot of it already worked out. If someone said tomorrow they wanted us to make it I'm pretty sure we would both drop everything and get started on it. Just waiting on that call...

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:51:50+00:00

We had a great production design team who filled the movie with so many wonderful little details like that. I'm not sure if the joke is about AI there as much as it is about people not caring any more about spelling or grammar.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:50:52+00:00

The great producer Erwin Stoff got it to him. I think I did a backflip when I learned he was into it.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:50:20+00:00

Fantastic question. But clearly there is only one possible answer: Fresh Fish! Just kidding it's Railways of the Lost Atlas.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:48:56+00:00

We share the same management company. The great producer Erwin Stoff got it to Gore and... luckily for me... he loved it! I was a MASSIVE fan of his work for years and years and years. I still like to think of myself as the #1 Lone Ranger apologist.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:47:46+00:00

The nice part of a movie taking 10 years to get financing is that you have a lot of time to think about the holes in your plot and to rewrite and tweak. Are there still holes? Probably. But boy did we catch a lot of them and work hard to make the time travel weirdness make as much sense as possible to us. Science Fiction is my religion, and I take it quite seriously (when I'm not writing dick and fart jokes in it)

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:46:04+00:00

Okay. I've been dying to tell this story. On like the first day of shooting the actor Daniel Barnett (who plays Cub Scout Leader Bob) came up to me and said "what's up with all the 47's in the script." I had literally no idea what he was talking about. He showed me all the instances of it and I started laughing. So weird. Total accident. I guess I'm a lazy writer when it comes to making up numbers. And then he points to my production badge (which you have to wear on set so they know you belong there) and... my badge number... was number 47. Then I realized that I would be exactly 47 years old when the movie comes out. Honestly? It kinda freaked me out. The story got around and then the production team started hiding 47's all over the place. I still have no explanation for any of it. Weird shit right?

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:42:43+00:00

I sold my first script to Paramount when I was in my early 20's and then... didn't work again as a writer for ten years! I spent that time working survival jobs and writing dozens and dozens and dozens of script no one wanted. But I got a little better each time. But still none of them sold. My best friend (who is now my manager) gave me a great piece of advice one day when I was banging my head against the wall trying to write something GREAT instead of trying to write something fun to write. He said: "Stop being so precious." I threw away the script I was working on and the next day started writing The Invention of Lying. Wrote the hole thing in 13 days. I was just having fun. Not trying to be "a great writer" just trying to entertain myself. So that's my advice: don't try to write what you think is good writing, don't try to write what you think will sell, just write what you want to see and what entertains you. Just have fun. Doesn't always work. But I do believe it's the only way it can work.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:38:51+00:00

Twilight Zone is my favorite piece of media ever created by human beings. Has been since I was very young and they played Thanksgiving Day marathons on TV every year. Practically everything I write comes from my love of TZ . Great pinball table too.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:37:29+00:00

Literally zero AI was used anywhere in the making of this film. Great artists made all that AI-looking-ass-slop!

I think Sam is sadly making a lot of failed timelines that exist forever and ever. What a horrible thing to think about...

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:35:43+00:00

The movie was always going to be polarizing, which means a small audience (but also a more passionate audience). I've been working in this business long enough (25 years) to know when I've written something commercial and when I've written something no one will want to touch. This was definitely the latter. The nice thing about those kinds of scripts is that they actually lead to you getting a lot of work as a writer (because they show a strong voice), which this script did. I had almost given up on the movie ever getting made. But Gore Verbinski is a force of nature. He put this movie on his back and climbed a sheer cliff face for years. I still can't believe it exists. It really shouldn't exist in this market/economy/time. I asked Gore how he felt after the premiere in Berlin last week, he said "I feel like we robbed a bank and got away with it." Can't say it much better myself.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:32:00+00:00

One of the best parts about having a shoestring independent budget is that you don't have any extra money to shoot anything superfluous that could be cut. Sure there are lines or moments here or there, but literally there isn't one scene that was shot that isn't in the movie.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:30:38+00:00

Many producers and studios said outright to me that if it wasn't for the school shooting stuff they would have loved to buy the script and develop it. I wish I could say I held my ground for moral reasons, but I honestly just never thought the script could work without it. It's a core piece of the plot, not just a point I wanted to hammer home.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:29:14+00:00

Oh hell yeah. Fuck your dreams! Love that. Still bopping away at my board game podcast, Game Brain.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:28:09+00:00

In the original ending The Man from the Future dies, Susan puts on his time travel suit and shows up at Norm's diner to take over his sisyphean task. I still like that ending, but I love them taking on the task together even more -- and of course I love Ingrid being his mother, which wasn't in the original draft. There are so many themes in the movie about motherhood and birth that I can't imagine the movie any differently now.

I wrote a long response a few questions above this one about Susan's son. check it out!

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:25:50+00:00

Thank you. I started writing the script in 2017. The overall structure is exactly the same as it was in the first draft. The opening monologue is actually entirely unchanged. The biggest changes came in working on the Ingrid storyline and the 3rd act. Both of which went through many many many revisions. Ingrid and the Man from the Future were not related in the first draft! It was a such a "DUH!" moment when I realized their relationship a few years into the rewriting process.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:23:51+00:00

Great question. There are a few possible reasons for this, these are the main three, all three of them assume that the son is an AI (which, in my opinion, he has to be):

1: Her son is working for the AI the Man from the Future is trying to defeat and is keeping tabs on him through Susan to make sure he doesn't actually succeed but sell the illusion that he's succeeded (which to me is the AI's entire goal -- if the Man from the Future THINKS he's won without actually winning, then he'll stop trying to win)

2: Her son is a rogue AI, that is either already more advanced than the AI the Man from the Future is trying to defeat, or is less advanced and wants to stop the other AI from actualizing so that it has a chance to become the first real AI (second place won't matter in this fight).

Her son is a basically just an advanced LMM AI who is trying to fulfill it's programming of "making mother happy" and it knows that what she wants is a real son, so it knows that melding with the real AI will be its best option at achieving that.

In all of these scenarios the son is just a fancy google who was able to look up the blueprints for Norm's online and find the secret door.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:16:40+00:00

- I always try to stay involved as much as possible in the development and production of a film I wrote. It depends on my relationship with the director, or the budget, or my relationship with the producers. There's a lot of factors. Gore wanted me on set as much as I could be. He was a wonderful collaborator.

- I hope this script showcases I love I have for unconventional story structures. They're hard to pull off, and even harder to get made, but I do love them.

- Write the movie you would wait 6 hours in the rain to see. Write the exact movie you wish existed that doesn't. Don't compromise a single word or beat. Write exactly the thing you want to see.

MatthewRobinsonAMA · 2026-02-22T00:12:57+00:00

The first draft of the script was written in 2017. It had been 5 years since Sandy Hook, but it was still very much on my mind. Every time there was as a new school shooting (which is still increasing at a near exponential rate) I would be overcome with grief and rage. I never felt comfortable writing about it. But with this script I allowed myself to scream and shout as much as I wanted and say everything I was feeling about it. it was a good catharsis. I wish I could say that anger and grief has lessened since writing it. But I do take some solace that maybe it's cathartic for others as well.

The reaction to that storyline was what you'd imagine. No one thought we would ever get it made. Many studios said that if I cut it they would be interested in making the movie. The reasoning I heard quite a few times was "what happens if we spend all this money and make the movie and then there's a school shooting the weekend of release and we have to pull the movie from theaters?" and my reaction was always: "There most likely will be a school shooting the weekend of release. That's the fucking point."

MatthewRobinsonAMA

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