Mr. Robot is a Sam Esmail-created American drama-thriller television series.¹⁾

Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer and hacker who suffers from social anxiety disorder and severe depression, is played by Rami Malek.²⁾

Alderson is persuaded to join a hacktivist gang by an insurgent anarchist known as “Mr. Robot”, played by Christian Slater.³⁾

By assaulting the enormous firm E Corp, the group hopes to eliminate all debts.⁴⁾

According to Sam Esmail, he has been interested by hacker culture for roughly 15 years and has wanted to produce a film on it.⁵⁾

Esmail consulted professionals during the development to provide a realistic image of hacking activity.⁶⁾

Another source of inspiration for Esmail, who is of Egyptian heritage, was the Arab Spring, in which young people who were dissatisfied with society utilized social media to effect change.⁷⁾

Mr. Robot was initially planned to be a full film, with the end of the first act involving someone discovering he had a mental condition while carrying out a larger conspiracy. However, halfway through the first act, he discovered that the screenplay had extended significantly, and it became a script more suited for a television program. He cut 20 pages from the 89-page screenplay and utilized it as the pilot for the series, and what was supposed to be the conclusion of the first act became the season finale.⁸⁾

Esmail took the script to Anonymous Content to see whether it might be turned into a television series, which USA Network picked up. Mr. Robot received a pilot order from USA Network in July 2014, and it was ordered to series with a 10-episode order in December 2014.⁹⁾

Sam Esmail will direct all ten episodes of season two, it was revealed in December 2015.¹⁰⁾

Sam Esmail has stated that American Psycho, Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, and The Matrix were key influences on the program.¹¹⁾

Esmail cited Fight Club as the inspiration for a primary character suffering from dissociative identity disorder who creates a new incarnation of his deceased father in the shape of a hacker, as well as the characters' anti-consumerist and anti-establishment attitudes.¹²⁾

In an interview, Esmail says how playing the song that Fincher chose to soundtrack the finale of his film (“Where Is My Mind?”) as Elliot launches the hack in episode nine is meant to convey to the viewer that he is aware of the influence they received from Fight Club.¹³⁾

Taxi Driver affected the protagonist's narrative, and additional influences acknowledged were Risky Business's music score, Blade Runner for character development, and the television series Breaking Bad for the plot arc.¹⁴⁾

The show is shot in New York. Coney Island, which serves as the base of operations for the hacker group fsociety, was used in the filming.¹⁵⁾