Despite finding massive success with the Deadpool franchise after having toiled for years trying to find the right vehicle to make him a bonafide star, Ryan Reynolds is still signing onto projects that aren’t superhero projects that require him to dress in red and black spandex. Per THR, he’s signed on to star in the sci-fi action comedy, Free Guy.
Shawn Levy will direct the project from a script written by Matt Lieberman, which revolves around a background character who realises he’s living in a video game. With the help of an avatar, he tries to stop the creators of the game from shutting it down and destroying his world.
While films directly adapted from video games haven’t traditionally fared well over the years, films that have taken aspects from video games have performed better. Wreck-It Ralph, Ready Player One and Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle are a few recent ones that have become hits, and perhaps Free Guy can use similar concepts for success as well.
Having Levy at the helm is somewhat surprising considering he’s mostly been producing over the past decade, with his last feature film being 2014’s Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb, though he has directed episodes of TV shows such as Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Stranger Things.
Interestingly, he’s also attached to direct the adaptation of one of the most popular video games franchises, Uncharted. However that project has been stuck in development hell for years, and looks likely to be for the foreseeable future, so it seems Free Guy is his next film.
Getting Reynolds onboard is certainly a huge coup. The actor is also currently set to star in Michael Bay‘s Netflix film Six Underground, while he’s also producing an R-rated spin on Home Alone titled Stoned Alone.
#Peace.Love.FreeGuy
