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⁾