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Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die: AI according to Gore Verbinski

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die: AI according to Gore Verbinski

Gore Verbinski returns to directing after almost a decade with Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. And in recent interviews, he has used the occasion to express strong and critical views on the role of artificial intelligence in cinema.

During the interviews for the launch of his new sci-fi movie Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean, A Cure for Wellness) expressed frustration and unease over the growing use of AI in the film industry and popular culture, criticizing the idea that machines could replace fundamental aspects of human creativity and storytelling: “Why should AI help me write a song or tell a story?”

Sci-fi satire and technological paranoia

Sam Rockwell (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Moon) steps into the ragged, tech-worn clothes of a man from the future. His character bursts into a Los Angeles diner to recruit the exact combination of people present needed to prevent a global catastrophe caused by the rise of a sentient and malevolent artificial superintelligence.

With a premise halfway between Terminator and 12 Monkeys, the first obstacle for this time-traveling homeless man is, in the present day, the attention span of his audience before they return to their smartphones: “This is not a robbery. I’m from the future and everything is going to go terribly wrong for you,” he announces, with his finger ready on the detonator of an explosive belt.

Verbinski’s ironic “Good Luck”

In the interview promoting the film, the director’s skeptical yet ironic attitude toward an AI-dominated future echoes throughout: a mix of warning, amusement and resilience in the face of technological transformation.

“These are the formative years of AI, and in a sense we are already compromising everything. What is it doing to us, and what are we doing to it? I don’t know if anyone is really asking that question. It has no chance of developing free from our waste. If man was created in God’s image and gods need to be worshipped, is that why there are so many narcissists in the world? Did we inherit it? Is it woven into our DNA? All these executives who are manipulating the core code of AI right as it is becoming potentially sentient, what are they going to do to it?”

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die will be released in U.S. theaters on February 13, 2026, while an official Italian release date has not yet been announced.