Game For A Laugh

FREE GUY I Ryan Reynolds’ alt-reality tentpole is a comedy for our turbulent times...

-  Ryan Reynold

The last time Teasers caught up with director Shawn Levy and his cast to talk about Ryan Reynolds-starrer Free Guy, we were just entering a near-global lockdown. We discussed how weird the situation was and how the film’s planned July opening would need to be delayed until ‘it was all over’, with the sort of naiveté we all felt when the world thought this might be a couple-of-weeks thing.

Seven long months later – with a second release date looming and lockdown still the new normal – Levy is aware how his tale of an NPC avatar, Guy (Reynolds), trying to bring kindness and order to his chaotic GTA-Esque open-world game might now have a far more personal resonance with audiences, as it is now scheduled to come out shortly before Christmas, into a world that’s still very much dealing with an ongoing crisis.

“As I was finishing up the sound mix for the movie,” he says while wrestling with wifi issues and childcare at home, “I was almost freaked out by how increasingly timely it feels. Because it’s not just that our real world feels like some augmented reality; it’s that it feels slightly dystopian. But the theme of the movie – which is a belief in the power of individuals to rally and have an impact on their world – that’s what the impetus for making this film was about: personal agency, personal empowerment. And if ever there was a need for reclamation of those themes, it’s now more than ever before.”