Free Guy

Free Guy is a 2021 American gamer comedy adventure film directed by Shawn Levy, a story by Matt Lieberman, and a screenplay by Lieberman and Zak Penn. The film stars Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar and Taika Waititi. A plot follows a main character named Guy, previously wear as black shoes and blue polo shirt secretly, a main antagonism towards named Mousey and Officer Johnny who was a villain of Free City, and Antwan wants to terminate Guy and take over the world. 
After a few delays, the film had its premieres in NYC on August 5, 2021, and the Locarno Film Festival on August 10, before seeing a wide release on August 13. It opened to positive reviews, and a sequel was greenlit later on.
== Premise ==
In the open world video game Free City, Guy is a non-player character working as a bank teller. Thanks to a code developed by programmers Milly and Keys inserted into Free City by the publisher Antoine, Guy becomes aware of his world being a video game, and takes steps to make himself the hero, creating a race against time to save the game before the developers can shut it down.
== Plot ==
Free City is an open-world video game developed by Soonami Games. Its code was based on a game called Free Life developed by Walter "Keys" McKey which he sold to Soonami in exchange for becoming its lead developer. Keys has since come to regret this decision, as Soonami's boss, Antwan, has since turned Free City into a generic cash-grab franchise, and now plans to replace it with its sequel Free City 2 as a means to developing fully sentient artificial intelligence. Keys' former partner, Millie Rusk, spends time within Free City as her avatar Molotov Girl to find evidence of Keys' code and prove Keys the rightful owner of the code.
In the game, Guy, a non-player character, works as a bank teller and spends time with his best friend Buddy, unaware his world is a video game. One day, he discovers a pair of sunglasses, worn by player avatars, that show him Free City through a heads-up display as a player would see. When Guy later encounters Molotov Girl, his programming further deviates. Millie recognizes that Guy is becoming sentient, and believes he can help her find Keys' code within the game world. As Guy completes missions within Free City under Millie's guidance to locate the source code, he becomes a worldwide sensation as players tune in to watch his heroic deeds.
Keys and Millie realize that Guy's self-awareness came about from code containing Millie's personal preferences that Keys had included in Free Life, which in turn had led Guy to develop a romantic interest with Millie. When Millie tells Guy the truth of his situation, Guy breaks off their relationship. However, after talking with Buddy about the situation, Guy realizes there was something more than love in that relationship, and gains full sentience. Guy returns to Millie to agree to help before Free City is wiped from Soomani's servers to make way for Free City 2 in two days.
Guy's continued popularity threatens the launch of Free City 2, and Antwan orders Keys and his new partner Mouser to reboot Guy's programming. When Millie next encounters him in-game, she finds him unaware of any of his prior sentience, but when she gives him a kiss, his backup data is restored. Guy is able to recall evidence of Keys' code from his apartment, as well as the location of the Island, part of Free Life that will protected from the pending data wipe. As Guy and Millie convince the other NPCs in the game to migrate to the Island, Antwan tries to delete Guy and Molotov Girl from the game. Keys interferes to protect them and direct them to the Island, leading Antwan to fire him. Antwan then sends Dude, a bigger and dumber copy of Guy developed for Free City 2, into the game, but Guy is able to befriend him. Antwan takes a final step of trying to destroy the game's servers, but Guy and the other NPCs make it to the Island in time, an event seen by gamers all over the world. Millie convinces Antwan to turn the Free City code and intellectual property back to Keys.
Without the support of Keys' code, sales for Free City 2 tank, and Antwan becomes wrapped up in several media controversies. Keys, Mouser, and Millie start a new company with the recovered code to release Free Life, bringing Guy, Buddy, and the other Free City NPCs into it. Free Life becomes a sleeper hit, while Millie realizes that Keys' code was in part a love letter to her.
== Cast ==
* Ryan Reynolds as Guy, a man who works a bank teller and machines but realised that he was wear blue polo shirt. Reynolds also portrays Dude, with his face superimposed onto bodybuilder Aaron W. Reed through visual effects. 
* Jodie Comer as Milly / Molotov Girl, a main female character who was Guy's girlfriend and a professional motorcycle driver.
* Joe Keery as Keys, a man who was a Milly's boyfriend on the Friday night. He was made on the containment avatar on Officer Johnny including Mouser. 
* Lil Rel Howery as Buddy, a police who was Guy's best friend in the game. Buddy Returns to the city "Free City 2" to using Keys' code.
* Utkarsh Ambudkar as Mouser, a main antagonism who towards made for the wearing pink mouse costume with mask and Officer Johnny's Bestfriend
* Taika Waititi as Antwan, a 2nd main antagonism who was evil developer on Free City
* Camille Kostek as Bombshell, a modern beauty in Free City.
*Britne Oldford as Missy, a fantastic girl who saw Guy in Free City on monitor using mouse
*Matty Cardarople as Gamer, a technical support boy and was reference version of Ralph Breaks the Internet who Gamer plays Slaughter Race.
*Mike Devine as Officer Johnny, a 3rd main antagonism who was Keys' avatar to estranged boys to arrested and terminate.
*Channing Tatum as Revenjamin Buttons, a cameo appearance who was Gamer's avatar with in-game avatar of Cardarople's character.
*Dwayne Johnson as a Bank Robber, a main antagonism towards cameo voices
*Tina Fey as Keith's vacuuming mom
*Hugh Jackman as a man with masked avatar in an alley
*John Krasinski as a silhouetted gamer
Additionally, the youtuber gamers such as Jacksepticeye, Ninja, Pokimane, DanTDM, and LazarBeam as a supporting role and cameo appearance. Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy announce the marketing campaign Jeopardy! Host Alex Trebek was also posthumous appearance as well including Chris Evans and Lara Spencer appears as themselves.
== Production ==
Free Guy had been in development at 20th Century Fox prior to its acquisition by Disney, and is one of the first Fox films to continue production under Disney ownership, as well as under the studio's new name 20th Century Studios. Ryan Reynolds, who produced the film along with Shawn Levy, said "I haven't been this fully immersed and engaged in something since Deadpool."
The film started principal photography in Boston in May 2019, including around the city's Financial District. Filming also took place in downtown Worcester, Massachusetts, and Framingham, Massachusetts, in the former Framingham Bank building, and at the former Naval Air Station in South Weymouth, Massachusetts.
While the game world was found to compare to those of Grand Theft Auto and Fortnite, production designer Ethan Tobman said that the design of the world drew more inspiration from games like SimCity and Red Dead Redemption 2. Within the film's climactic battle between Guy and Dude, several weapons pulled from other video game and film franchises are used, including a lightsaber, one of Fortnite's pickaxes, the gravity gun from Half-Life 2, the portal gun from Portal, Captain America's shield, and Hulk's fists. According to Tobman, some of these weapons came about after the film was acquired by Disney, who already owned the Marvel franchises, with the company being supportive of their inclusion. This segment also was meant to allude to Reynolds' Deadpool character, who was already part of the Marvel universe.
== Marketing ==
Ryan Reynolds Annoucement that the most teaser trailer release in December 8, 2019. The first trailer will be October 5, 2020. Additionally, 2nd trailer will be June 10, 2021 including U.K. release poster and Theatrical poster. In July 2021, Reynolds released a video on YouTube titled Deadpool and Korg React, which features Reynolds reprising his role as Wade Wilson / Deadpool from the X-Men film series and Waititi reprising his role as Korg from the Marvel Cinematic Universe reacting to the trailer to Free Guy. On August 12, 2021, the character Dude became an outfit in the popular videogame, Fortnite. It is sold in the game’s item shop for 1,200 V-Bucks, equivalent to 8-10 USD
== Release ==
Free Guy is scheduled to be released in the United States on August 13, 2021. It will have a 45-day exclusive theatrical release with exclusively IMAX, Dolby Cinema, & Real D 3D. And premiere at the New York City in August 5, 2021.
The film was initially scheduled to be released July 3, 2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was then moved to December 11, 2020. In November 2020, the studio removed the film, along with Death on the Nile, from its upcoming release schedule until further notice. The next month, the film was rescheduled to May 21, 2021. In March, Ryan Reynolds announced that the film would again move, this time to the August 2021 date.
The film premiered at the Piazza Grande section of the 74th Locarno Film Festival in August of 2021.
== Reception ==
=== Box office ===
In the United States and Canada, Free Guy will be released alongside Respect and Don't Breathe 2, and is projected to gross $15–18 million from 4,100 theaters in its opening weekend.
=== Critical response ===
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 85% based on 123 reviews with an average rating of 7/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Combining a clever concept, sweet, self-aware humor, and a charming cast, Free Guy is frivolous fun." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100 based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Writing for Variety, Peter Debruge 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." Reviewing for The A.V. Club, A.A. Dowd 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."
== Possible Sequel ==
On August 14, following the film's successful first day box office gross, Reynolds confirmed that Disney wanted a sequel.
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