Sam Rockwell Leads a Fight to Save the Future in Bonkers 'Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die' Trailer

4 days ago 12

Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.

Only one month remains until the fight to save the world begins, and Sam Rockwell is ready to lead the charge. Briarcliff Entertainment has released a new trailer for Gore Verbinski's return to filmmaking, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, a sci-fi satire following a man claiming to be from the future who must recruit the right combination of disgruntled Los Angeles diner patrons for a one-night mission to stop the rise of a rogue AI. The footage gives a look at these unlikely heroes and the reality they're fighting to prevent from happening. If they fail, well, that's too bleak a reality for Rockwell's raincoat-donning time traveler to even address.

After a glimpse into what looks to be humanity's cold, dark future, Rockwell's manic stranger enters the scene with a dire warning of something big that he can't prepare the world for. As he speaks, a few shots show the potential recruits to his grand plan, everyday people who have become fed up with the overreliance on technology, whether it's in a classroom, at a birthday party, or elsewhere. At first, though, nobody really listens to the man dressed as if he crawled out of a high-tech dumpster. Extreme measures and a bit of appealing to everyone's underlying sense that technology is already doing mass harm to humanity finally get him a team to work with, though that's the easy part. From the police to masked criminals, AI-controlled zombie teenagers, and massive wire monstrosities, they have their work cut out for them. However, the man has confidence that they just may be the perfect crew to finally set the world back on track.

Above all else, the trailer shows that Verbinski's latest isn't afraid to get weird and creative. Between Rockwell and his team's costumes, the aforementioned whirl of wires, and a giant hooved beast capable of crushing cars, the adventure is bound to be a strange one. Verbinski was often hailed as an innovative voice in film after finding success with his fun, Oscar-winning animated western Rango and the swashbuckling Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. For his first film in a decade, he got to work with a starry cast featuring Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaudhry, Tom Taylor, and Juno Temple around Rockwell. Dora and the Lost City of Gold and Love and Monsters writer Matthew Robinson penned the screenplay.

'Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die' Is Shaping Up as a Return to Form for Verbinski

Premiering at Fantastic Fest last year, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die was an instant hit with critics, earning a strong 94% on Rotten Tomatoes with high praise for its general unpredictability and frightening relevance to the current day and the rise of AI Collider's Aidan Kelley was among those singing its praises, giving it an 8/10 in his review and saying that, although it's admittedly unsubtle in its message, "it makes for a raucous sci-fi comedy with extremely ambitious goals and insightful commentary on the current state of the world and how it can evolve (or devolve) into something unrecognizable." Verbinski's team-up with Robinson is shaping up as quite the bounce-back for the once beloved director after his last two films, The Lone Ranger and A Cure for Wellness, failed to live up to the standards of his earlier successes.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die releases in theaters on February 13, 2026. Check out the trailer in the player above.