It stars an ensemble cast that includes Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, and Chris Hemsworth.

The plot centers on six strangers and an employee at the El Royale, a hotel located along the California–Nevada border, whose personal secrets intersect on a fateful night in the late 1960s.

Bad Times at the El Royale's marketing efforts included posters, trailers, and television advertisements, stylized to evoke nostalgia of the noir genre and to make the movie stand out against other films in theaters.

A decade later, Catholic priest Daniel Flynn, singer Darlene Sweet, salesman Laramie Seymour Sullivan, and hippie Emily Summerspring arrive at the hotel, now run solely by heroin addict Miles Miller, and book separate rooms.

After stealing the hotel's master key, he discovers a secret corridor where every room can be observed through one-way mirrors and filmed with a camera.

Miles, looking for the missing master key, leads Daniel to the secret corridor, explaining that he used to regularly film intimate encounters that he had to send to his superiors.

When Daniel leaves to evaluate said film, Miles witnesses through the one-way mirror Dwight attempting to rescue Emily's hostage, revealed to be her younger sister, Rose.

Recently paroled, he arrived in disguise to retrieve the money hidden by his brother Felix, but due to his failing memory, he picked the wrong room and tried to drug Darlene to gain access to hers.

In a flashback, Billy preaches to his cult how people are forced to choose sides by getting Rose to fight another girl for the chance to sleep with him as Emily watches nearby.

As Kyle Kizu from The Hollywood Reporter notes, the filmography of writer and director Drew Goddard has deconstructed specific genres multiple times.

[9][10] "The film's purgatory also functions as a microcosm of an America trying to get a grip on its sins from the 1960s; Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, cruelly casual racism, roguish celebrities, doomed Hollywood starlets, hippie cult leaders, gruesome random murders, and the Vietnam War are all in the story's background.

She explained the decision of Dwight Broadbeck to violate his orders to potentially rescue a kidnapping victim, as his attempt to do what is right after reciting to his daughter a revised version of the prayer "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep".

"[14] Lia Beck from Bustle, on the other hand, closely examined the possibility of JFK being the person on the tape, as he had been rumored to have had an affair with Marilyn Monroe in the 1960s, who appears in the film through a photograph.

[17] In November 2016, Goddard began writing the spec script to Bad Times at the El Royale, his next project after earning an Academy Award nomination for adapting The Martian (2015).

[28] Jeff Bridges was the first person to receive the script,[29] and on August 23, 2017, it was announced he had been in negotiations to star alongside Chris Hemsworth, who previously worked with the director on The Cabin in the Woods.

[30][31] Actors who were also being considered for lead roles included Beyoncé, Tom Holland, and newcomer Cailee Spaeny;[32] the latter was officially cast on August 24.

[38][39] To quickly find his replacement, Jon Hamm was contacted while attending the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and given two days to read the screenplay and decide whether he wanted to star.

[47] Summarizing his work, Glicker felt that actors wearing his created costumes were "infused with truthful information [...] to experience that character's life without inhibition".

[60][61] It took eight months to plan a tracking shot in which Hamm's character discovers the secret corridor of the El Royale and watches the hotel guests through one-way mirrors.

[41] Due to the complexity of the scene, in which Erivo was singing live for the five-minute continuous shot, cast and crew members had to move silently in unison while wearing "padded shoes and quiet clothes".

[64][65] The film's climax scene in which the hotel burns down was planned using fire retardant materials by Whist's brother Joel, a special effects coordinator.

Additional filming in Los Angeles and north of Malibu, California, took place for three days when scenes involving a flower walk and a beach were shot.

[77][78] A teaser for the film was publicized on June 7, 2018,[79] with Entertainment Weekly calling it a "tense first look" and IndieWire comparing its premise to Clue (1985) and the television series Room 104.

[80][81] On August 28, an official trailer was released, which Collider described as "fantastic" as it was "more delightful for the fact that it reveals pretty much nothing beyond the basic setup and the idea that none of these strangers is who they at first appear to be".

[94] The Hollywood Reporter's Chris Thilk analyzed the marketing techniques of Bad Times at the El Royale, summarizing the fact that the studio was "[betting] on noir nostalgia" to attract audiences.

In his summary, he wrote that the marketing campaign "promoted a strong cast and a wicked sense of humor", and that 20th Century Fox "has embraced that to sell it to those looking for something a bit different at the theater".

[34] At the opening, Whedon gave the film positive feedback, having previously worked with Goddard on writing The Cabin in the Woods, and said of the finished product, "It's gritty, it's hard-edged, but it's adorable.

[114] Worldwide, Bad Times at the El Royale debuted in 36 markets, making $4 million in its opening weekend;[115] the top countries were Russia ($913,000), Australia ($884,000), the United Kingdom ($620,000), and Germany ($315,000).

The website's critical consensus reads, "Smart, stylish, and packed with solid performances, Bad Times at the El Royale delivers pure popcorn fun with the salty tang of social subtext.

[2] Additionally, Goddard's screenplay for the film received mixed reviews, with some praising it for its dialogue and use of violence,[124][125] others comparing it to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) and Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (1956),[2][24][126] and several critics finding its third act failed to deliver the ending it was building towards.