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Free Guy is a 2021 American science fiction action-comedy film directed and produced by Shawn Levy from a screenplay by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, and a story by Lieberman. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as a bank teller who discovers that he is a non-player character in a massively multiplayer online game, who then partners with a player to find evidence that a gaming company's CEO stole the source code of the player's game. The cast also features Jodie Comer, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Joe Keery, and Taika Waititi.
Lieberman began writing the script in 2016, which was acquired by 20th Century Fox shortly after. Levy passed on the script but reconsidered after Hugh Jackman introduced him to Reynolds, resulting in him leaving the film adaptation of the Uncharted video game he had been developing. The acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney made Free Guy one of the first films produced by the studio to continue production under Disney's ownership. Filming took place in Massachusetts and California between May and July 2019.
After Free Guy was delayed two times by the COVID-19 pandemic, it premiered at the 74th Locarno Film Festival on August 10, 2021, and was released theatrically in the United States by 20th Century Studios three days later. The film was a commercial success, grossing $331.5 million worldwide against a $100–125 million production budget, and received generally positive reviews from critics, who compared it to films and video games such as Ready Player One, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Grand Theft Auto, and Fortnite. It received a nomination for Best Visual Effects at the 94th Academy Awards.
Unemployed software developer Millie Rusk plays Free City to find proof that Soonami stole the source code from the concept game she developed, Life Itself, which included novel artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for its NPCs. Her friend and co-developer Walter "Keys" McKey is reluctant to help, as he now works in technical support at Soonami. Millie's avatar "MolotovGirl" catches Guy's attention by singing his favorite song, "Fantasy". Guy then begins to deviate from his programming, accidentally shooting a player robbing the bank, and leaving with the player's sunglasses.
Believing Guy to be a hacker disguised as an NPC, Keys and his coworker Mouser unsuccessfully try to ban him from the game. Accessing the players' view of the game, Guy visits new areas and meets Millie at Revenjamin Buttons' stash house, where they attempt to steal evidence leading to her source code. Believing Guy to be a Newbie, she advises him to level up. Guy rapidly progresses through the game by completing missions benevolently, standing out from other players and becoming a worldwide sensation known as "Blue Shirt Guy".
As Keys realizes that Guy truly is an NPC, other NPCs that Guy interacts with also begin to develop self-awareness. However, Free City 2 is due to release in 48 hours and will replace Free City, terminating all of its NPCs. Millie tells Guy the truth about his existence, but he becomes distraught and breaks off contact. Guy eventually realizes that there is something more to an NPC's existence, and goes with Buddy to get the evidence Millie wanted from Buttons, who accidentally Glitching through the edge of Free City's map and discovered an older build of Life Itself, recording a digital video in the process. Guy's popularity threatens the plans of Soonami's CEO Antwan Hovachelik to launch Free City 2, so he orders a server reboot which resets Guy's memories. Guy regains his self-awareness when Millie kisses him.
Guy recalls the location of an island containing remnants of the Life Itself build and they attempt to reach it before the Free City 2 launch wipes all old content from the servers, rallying the NPCs to go on strike from the game to hinder Antwan. Antwan fires Keys, has every player removed from Free City, and sends an unfinished but extremely powerful Guy-resembling character named Dude into the game to stop Guy. Initially overwhelmed, Guy then puts his sunglasses on Dude, distracting him, and proceeds to the island. Furious, Antwan begins smashing the game's network server racks with an axe in a last-ditch attempt to stop Guy, erasing Buddy and much of the game world, while firing Mouser after he soon realized that he did steal Millie's code. Before he can destroy the final server, Guy manages to reach the island and Millie offers a deal to drop the copyright infringement lawsuit and surrender the Free City franchise's profits to him in exchange for her creation. Antwan agrees to her terms, believing she made a bad deal.
Sometime later, sales for Free City 2 slip because of Software bug in the code and lagging online play. An embattled Antwan is in the crosshairs, but claims he is a victim of circumstance. Millie salvages her code and along with Keys and Mouser, releases the indie game Free Life, which includes Guy, Dude, and the other NPCs from Free City. Guy reveals to Millie that his code is actually a love letter to her from Keys: during the development of Life Itself, Keys had encoded what he knew about her tastes into an AI routine in the game, which was eventually incorporated into Free City, explaining why Guy felt drawn to MolotovGirl. After Millie leaves the game, she and Keys kiss. Meanwhile, Guy and Dude reunite with Buddy, whose AI algorithm was reconstructed.
The film features from gamers and streamers jacksepticeye, Ninja, Pokimane, DanTDM, and LazarBeam who, in the film, provide commentary on Guy and Free City on their respective YouTube and Twitch channels from their own perspectives.
Actor Chris Evans and Good Morning America anchor Lara Spencer make cameo appearances as themselves. Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek made a posthumous cameo appearance in his final film role before his passing on November 8, 2020.
Other voice roles in the film include Hugh Jackman as a masked avatar in an alley (physically portrayed by Patrick Vincent Curran) who MolotovGirl gets the location to Revenjamin Buttons' stash house from, Dwayne Johnson as bank robber #2 (physically portrayed by Owen Burke) whom Guy accidentally shoots while trying to claim his sunglasses, Tina Fey as Keith's mother (physically portrayed by Regina Taufen) who was vacuuming in the background, and John Krasinski as a silhouetted gamer (physically portrayed by Rosario Corso) who comments about Guy and the NPCs alongside the previously mentioned gamers and streamers.
The film features several weapons from other video game and film franchises, including the Scorpion from , a Mega Buster from Mega Man, a lightsaber from Star Wars, one of Fortnite pickaxes, the gravity gun from Half-Life 2, the portal gun from Portal, as well as Captain America's shield and Hulk's fist from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When the film was acquired by Disney, which owns the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, the filmmakers made a request to use iconic weapons from those properties, and were granted permission to use everything they requested. The cameo by Chris Evans was suggested by Reynolds' wife Blake Lively. Levy contacted Evans, who was already in Boston shooting Defending Jacob and asked if he would come by for ten minutes, and he agreed.
On August 12, 2021, Dude became a purchasable outfit in the video game Fortnite alongside a series of optional quests placed into the game to allow players to unlock an emote with Reynolds's voice. Free Guys marketing team created parody posters in the style of other video games, including Super Mario 64, Minecraft, Among Us, , Mega Man, Street Fighter II, Doom, and .
In the United States and Canada, Free Guy was released alongside Respect and Don't Breathe 2, and was initially projected to gross $15–18 million from 4,165 theaters in its opening weekend. However, after making $10.5 million on its first day (including $2.2 million from Thursday-night previews), estimates were raised to $26 million. It went on to debut to $28.4 million, topping the box office. The film made $18.5 million in its second weekend, remaining in first. The drop of just 34% marked the smallest second-weekend decline of any wide release of the summer and the second-best of Reynolds' career. In its third weekend, it was beaten by newcomer Candyman, but the film continued to hold well, falling by 27% earning $13.6 million.
Peter Debruge of Variety magazine called the film an "at-times unwieldy mashup of multiple-reality blockbusters like The Matrix and The Lego Movie" and said that " Free Guy is a lot of fun, despite the fact that Levy and the screenwriters seem to be changing the rules as they go." Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times lauded both the "perfectly cast" Reynolds and "superb and charming Jodie Comer." Giving the film three out of four stars, he wrote "Thanks in large part to the vibrant, funny, sweet, endearing work by Reynolds and Comer, Free Guy delivers." A.A. Dowd of The A.V. Club gave the film a C+ grade and said, "For all its casual mayhem, Free Guy turns out to be a rather cuddly crowdpleaser, a high-concept blockbuster trifle with bubblegum ice cream clogging its circuits." Dowd contrasted the film with The Truman Show, saying "Reynolds replicates that slightly unhinged Truman Burbank grin but not the desperation behind it." Nick De Semlyen of Empire was critical of the film; he compared it unfavorably to 2018's Ready Player One, and said that although it is "eager to please" it "doesn't really hang together, even as you're watching it."
The film ranks sixth on Rotten Tomatoes' Best Science Fiction Movies of 2021.
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| Best Actor in a Science Fiction/Fantasy Movie | Ryan Reynolds | |
| Best Actress in a Science Fiction/Fantasy Movie | Jodie Comer | |
| Best Visual Effects | Swen Gillberg, Bryan Grill, Nikos Kalaitzidis, and Dan Sudick | |
| Best Fight | Guy vs. Dude | |
| The Male Movie Star of 2021 | Ryan Reynolds | |
| The Comedy Movie Star of 2021 | ||
| Best Supporting Actress | Jodie Comer |
In September 2023, Levy said the story for the sequel was being revised in response to the film Barbie. Levy stated, "We are developing a sequel, but the truth is that you now have Barbie that has obviously left a mark about a character in a fictional world who comes to self-awareness. So, we're only gonna make Free Guy 2 if it's different than the first movie and if it's different from other movies."
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