NYCC: Ryan Reynolds gets trapped in a video game in movie Free Guy
At New York Comic Con, Free Guy's director and cast impress fans with new footage. The 2020 film also stars Taika Waititi, Joe Keery and Jodie Comer.
Actor Ryan Reynolds finds himself as a self-aware background character in a violent video game he must save from destruction in upcoming action-comedy Free Guy.
What happens when you discover you're not actually real but just a background character trapped inside a video game?
In the upcoming movie Free Guy, Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) plays a bank teller inside a video game who works at a bank that always seems to get robbed. His character, Guy, soon realizes he's not real, but just a background character in a violent open-world video game called Free City (think Grand Theft Auto) that's about to be discontinued. And it's up to Guy to save his world.
Additional cast members include Taika Waititi (JoJo Rabbit), Jodie Comer (Killing Eve), Joe Keery (Stranger Things), Lil Rel Howery (Get Out), Utkarsh Ambudkar (Pitch Perfect 2) and Channing Tatum (The Hateful Eight).
I remember the first time I met Taika. It was way back in 2019, but it feels like it wasn’t 10 years ago. #FreeGuy #introductions #NewFriends @TaikaWaititi pic.twitter.com/8gPZ8ZYxId
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) October 3, 2019
Free Guy director Shawn Levy, and actors Reynolds, Comer, Keery, Howery and Ambudkar, showed footage from the film and talked about their characters at the New York Comic Con 20th Century Fox panel on Thursday.
"Ryan and I have talked about Free Guy as a superhero origin story without the cape and tights and the IP. If you were living in a video game and could master the system, your powers would be limitless," Levy told the audience.
Reynolds said he's just as excited to play the character of Guy as he was to play Deadpool. Reynolds also revealed the movie goes back and forth between the real world and the world inside the game.
Here's a sneak peek of @jodiecomer as Molotov Girl pic.twitter.com/JC7UR8iIp4
— TV Guide (@TVGuide) October 3, 2019
Comer talked about the challenges of playing two versions of the same character, Molotov Girl and Milly.
"The biggest thing for me was the physicality of her," Comer said. "They move differently. There's also an accent filter in the game, so they speak quite differently, which you'll hear. We create avatars of how we might want to behave."
The audience got to see five minutes of footage from the new movie, as well as an early cut of a trailer. The footage showed Reynolds' character telling Comer's Molotov he refuses to be a bad guy in the game.
The footage also included a scene between Comer's real-world character Milly talking with her best friend, played by Keery, when they find out their computer code for the game is transforming characters into artificially intelligence beings that are self-aware -- including Guy.
Taika Waititi (yes, he's in this too!) plays the video game publisher (he's essentially the movie's villain). Here's a photo of him they showed us #NYCC19 pic.twitter.com/PsIIifnww1
— Kirsten (@KirstenAcuna) October 3, 2019
Free Guy hits theaters on July 3, 2020. Another fun tidbit revealed during the panel is that director/actor Taika Waititi plays a villainous video game publisher. Plus, real-life gaming celebrities including Ninja and Jacksepticeye, among others, will have cameos in the film.
The movie's logo and official movie poster also debuted during the panel. And fans got collectible Free Guy water bottles.
Fans and film critics who saw the new footage at the panel tweeted their excitement for the film.
"You heard it here first: The best movie about online game preservation is coming out in 2020," fan Jason Scott tweeted.
"They just showed us the first clip from Free Guy and it's Jodie Comer's character, Molotov Girl, and Ryan Reynolds' character Guy in some kind of hi-tech weaponry and vehicle room -- very slick," fan Rama's Screen tweeted.
From the five minutes we’ve seen of Free Guy, I’m. In. For. It!! @NY_Comic_Con @VancityReynolds #NYCC2019 @popcultureview pic.twitter.com/PYaWy9plkm
— Sheila (@SheilsMcGangsta) October 3, 2019
Jodie Comer plays two different characters - her avatar in the game (left) and Millie (not 💯 on spelling) on the right. #NYCC19 pic.twitter.com/dvWgsPmPM4
— Kirsten (@KirstenAcuna) October 3, 2019
I truly didn’t know I needed Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer comedically playing off each other in a movie until now #FreeGuy #NYCC pic.twitter.com/Kyhck5Cc86
— Nora Dominick @ NYCC (@noradominick) October 3, 2019
Oh man, I hope it has at least one extended montage of him ripping floppies while trying to compile various emulators with emscripten
— James Baicoianu (@bai0) October 3, 2019
They just showed us the first clip from "Free Guy" and it's Jodie Comer's character, Molotov Girl, and Ryan Reynolds' character Guy in some kind of hi-tech weaponry & vehicle room. Very slick.#FreeGuy #NYCC #NYCC2019 #NYCC19 #RyanReynolds #jodiecomer
— Rama's Screen @ NYCC (@RamasScreen) October 3, 2019
@ShawnLevyDirect says that #FreeGuy will have multiple video game Easter eggs throughout the film. So keep a look out! #NYCC #NYCC19 @NY_Comic_Con @20thcenturyfox
— Pop! Pour! Review Podcast (@poppourreview) October 3, 2019
@VancityReynolds just called Joe Keery "the best exposition deliverer" and "a god damn snack" the entire audience of the panel and everyone on Earth just audibly agreed! #NYCC2019 #HighFiveDoesNYCC #ProNerd #HighFiveThePodcast #FreeGuy #Fox #StrangerThings pic.twitter.com/DIqxh2WO77
— High Five:ThePodcast (@High5thePodcast) October 3, 2019
The only thing you need to see today is @UTKtheINC in a bunny suit and @joe_keery with a mustache 😄 #NYCC pic.twitter.com/N8Hi9KjRxG
— TV Guide (@TVGuide) October 3, 2019
