A man claiming to be from the future recruits an unlikely group of diner patrons to join him on a mission to save humanity from the perils of social media brainrot and the impending AI apocalypse. A film by Gore Verbinski, starring Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaudhry, Tom Taylor, Georgia Goodman, Daniel Barnett, Artie Wilkinson-Hunt, Riccardo Drayton, Dominique Maher, David Sturzaker, Adam Burton, Elly Condron, Meghan Oberholzer, Berenice Barbier, Tanya van Graan, and Juno Temple.

At 10:10 PM on an ordinary night at Norms Diner, a man (Sam Rockwell) in a peculiar raincoat bursts in and announces he’s from the future. Customers look up briefly and return to scrolling on their phones and eating their food, completely unbothered.

Determined to get their attention, he snatches a phone from a woman mid-scroll and dunks it into a pitcher of ice water. He grabs another from a nearby table and sends it sailing through the open kitchen window, straight into a stockpot.

With everyone’s attention finally on him, he announces he’s come back to warn them that things are about to go terribly wrong, and they are heading down the darkest possible timeline.

When a few patrons decide they’ve had enough of this apparent lunatic and try to quietly slip out, he intercepts them and blocks the door. The situation immediately goes from weird to terrifying. He pulls out a detonator, revealing he’s covered in bombs strapped under the raincoat. He warns that if anyone else tries to leave or gets closer to him, he won’t hesitate to blow up the entire diner.

The man explains that he has traced the beginning of the apocalypse back to this specific diner in Los Angeles. He believes that somewhere among the current customers is the perfect team needed to save humanity. This, he tells them, is his 117th time standing in this same diner, delivering this same speech. He remembers every single one of them. They have no idea who he is.

Like a waking nightmare version of Groundhog Day, he has lived this night over and over again, each time assembling a different combination of people, and each time failing. He has held some of them in his arms and watched the life leave their eyes. He has done this so many times, he tells them, that he knows some of them better than they know themselves. Then he begins to prove it. One by one, he calls out their names, tells them exactly why they walked into Norms tonight, and how many times each of them has died across their many failed missions together.

His speech lands to complete silence. Not one person volunteers. Then Gerald (Wiseman Sithole) raises his hand. The man looks at him, says “no” repeatedly. Gerald has joined the team 29 times across 29 different timelines, he explains, and has never once made it very far.

Disappointed, the man prepares to abort the timeline and make another jump just as police sirens wail outside, presumably called in by the waitress, Dolores (Natasha Nova). Suddenly, Susan (Juno Temple) raises her hand and volunteers. This gives the man a flicker of hope that others might follow. But they don’t.

With no one else stepping forward, he resorts to pointing fingers, forcibly drafting Scott (Asim Chaudhry), Janet (Zazie Beetz), and Mark (Michael Peña). Hoping to de-escalate the situation and protect the remaining patrons, Bob (Daniel Barnett) reluctantly volunteers. Then Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson) stands and offers to join. He turns her down, choosing Marie (Georgia Goodman) instead.

While he contemplates whether a six-person squad will be enough to pull off the mission, a bottle of hot sauce rolls off a table and clatters to the floor. It spins like a compass needle before coming to a dead stop, pointing directly at Ingrid. He looks at it and looks at her. Maybe it’s fate. He changes his mind and brings her along.

With a tense police standoff raging outside, it seems impossible for them to escape the restaurant. The man explains that they have three terrible options: the front doors, the back door, and the emergency exit. He has tried them all on previous loops. Every single attempt ended with the group getting killed or apprehended, forcing him to restart the timeline.

The man turns his attention to Bob. He knows Bob is an assistant scout leader who is secretly carrying a concealed gun, just waiting for the right moment to shoot him. He convinces Bob that he can be the hero who saves the world tonight. He then tasks Bob with going out the back exit to buy the rest of the group a window to escape. The man assures Bob that they have done this many times before and that he has survived. Feeling brave, Bob steps out the back door and is immediately shot to death by the police.

The rest of the group is horrified. Unbothered, the man tells everyone to follow him. He casually mentions that he had actually never tried that strategy before but figured it was worth a shot.

As the group breaks into a heated argument about how they are supposed to escape now, Susan chimes in. She asserts that there is actually a fourth option. Susan reveals a hidden door in the manager’s office that leads down to a cellar, connecting to a crawl space that exits safely down the block.

🅟

@pradt

GOOD LUCK
HAVE FUN
DON'T DIE
—
A film by Gore Verbinski, starring Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaudhry, Tom Taylor, Georgia Goodman, Daniel Barnett, Artie Wilkinson-Hunt, Riccardo Drayton, Dominique Maher, David Sturzaker, Adam Burton, Elly Condron, Meghan Oberholzer, Berenice Barbier, Tanya van Graan, and Juno Temple.

The man is bewildered. Having lived through this exact diner scenario 116 times, he is certain that if a fourth exit existed, he would have found it by now. He tries to explain that he has never seen a cellar, but the group ignores him and urge Susan to lead the way to the office.

To his surprise, Susan pulls back the rug to reveal a hidden door. Before letting anyone enter the cellar, the man confiscates and drops all of their cell phones in the bucket filled with water. As they climb into the cellar, his suspicion grows. How could she possibly know about this secret exit?

He confronts her directly, accusing her of being a cop or an agent sent to sabotage his mission. Susan dodges his questions and refuses to give a straight answer. She merely states that she wants to help and suggests that perhaps they are exactly the right team he has been looking for.

This section is currently in progress.

Directed by Gore Verbinski and written by Matthew Robinson, GOOD LUCK HAVE FUN DON’T DIE is a sci-fi adventure comedy about a man who claims to be a time traveler from the future, desperately recruiting volunteers to help him pull off a critical mission.

GOOD LUCK HAVE FUN DON’T DIE premiered at the Fantastic Fest on 24 September 2025. The film was theatrically released in the United States on 13 February 2026.