Free Guy is a 2021 American 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, Jodie Comer, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Joe Keery, and Taika Waititi. It tells the story of 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 player's game's source code.
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 the film 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 three days later on August 13 in RealD 3D, IMAX, 4DX and Dolby Cinema formats. It grossed $331.5 million worldwide. The film received generally positive reviews from critics for the concept, comparing it to science fiction films and action video games such as Ready Player One, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Grand Theft Auto, and Fortnite. The film received a nomination for Best Visual Effects at the 94th Academy Awards.
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