Jerry & Marge Go Large stars Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening as real life lottery winners, but are the Harvard students Tyler and Eric real as well?

Most viewers know there is a Jerry & Marge Go Large true story, but it might be unclear if the supporting characters of Tyler and Eric existed in real life like the titular couple. Adapted from the HuffPost article of the same name, the Paramount+ movie depicts the tale of retirees Jerry and Marge Selbee Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening), who in the early 2000s packed up their truck and drove across state lines every three weeks to play the Massachusetts lottery — through which they eventually earned close to $27 million thanks to a loophole they discovered. The central conflict of Jerry & Marge Go Large comes in the form of Tyler and Eric.

They are two arrogant Harvard University students who also notice the lottery discrepancy and choose to exploit it for their financial gain legally. They get help from other students at Harvard, as well as outside investors, and form their own company to make sure everything they are doing is above board. Tyler (Uly Schlesinger) in particular, is portrayed as slimy and cunning, compared to Jerry's calm and generous demeanor. In the case of the Jerry & Marge Go Large true story, Tyler and Eric are based on two college students who did most of what's seen in the movie. Their names were changed, but the characters are meant to represent James Harvey and Yuran Lu, who attended MIT.

James Harvey And Yuran Lu - The Real Tyler And Eric Explained

Around the time that the real Selbees were taking advantage of the flaws of the Massachusetts Lottery's WinFall game, James Harvey was completing an independent study project for his undergraduate mathematics degree at MIT when he discovered that he could profit off of the same game. After analyzing WinFall, he realized that if the jackpot hit $2 million with no winner, it would roll down to then be allocated among all the game players who had matched three, four, or five of the six numbers. Like Selbee, he figured out that the more money he played and the timing of his bet netted him a profit almost every time.

Harvey got other MIT students in on the action, including Yuran Lu, and together the duo formed a company called Random Strategies Investments LLC to play WinFall. They accumulated around $17 million before Massachusetts Lottery officials shut down the game permanently. Regarding Tyler and Eric's contention with the Selbees in the movie, though, the real Harvey and Lu didn't take to bullying tactics against the retirees, so that is not part of the Jerry & Marge Go Large true story and is completely fictional.

Tyler And Eric Weren't The Only Changes In Jerry & Marge Go Large

The Jerry & Marge Go Large true story didn't just make some subtle changes to Tyler and Eric, but it also made some changes to the overall story of the Selbees as well. Instead of showcasing everything that happened in Jerry's story and contrasting that with American capitalism and the economic crisis, the movie ended up as a basic feel-good story. This was shown the worst when the characters of Jerry and Marge were mostly generic retirees, without really showing the real people that the article by Jason Fagone brought to life.

This also hurt when Tyler and Eric were made into villains, which was in no way part of the Jerry & Marge Go Large true story. With Jerry and Marge just portrayed as a kind older couple who found a way to make a lot of money, turning the college kids into villains never seemed to work and just created unnecessary tension where the real story could have sufficed. The state of the country economically was much more interesting than two MIT students bullying retirees. However, while the movie mostly ignored what was happening in the nation at the time of the windfall for the Selbees and their friends in town, much of what the movie presented was true to life.

Just like Bryan Cranston in the movie, Jerry did, in fact, figure out the odds in the lottery loophole in about three minutes. He also figured out how much he needed to buy to make a profit and tested it out some before he told Marge about his findings. Finally, he did set up the corporation with friends and family to get in on the action and helped turn his town around. When it comes to the Jerry & Marge Go Large true story, enough was real to make it a good biopic, with just enough false things to make it a feel-good movie.