Ryan Reynolds Likens FREE GUY To FIELD OF DREAMS and Says It's the Best Film He's Made
A new trailer recently dropped for Ryan Reynolds’ upcoming video game-set action film Free Guy. It looks like it’s going to be a super entertaining flick, and during a recent virtual press conference, the actor explained it is going to tell a beautiful story that isn’t just meant for gamers. In fact, he likened the movie to Kevin Costner’s classic film, Field of Dreams.
"I always look at like, sports movies are good metaphors. The greatest sports movies ever made are not actually about sports. Field of Dreams, I wouldn't characterize that as a baseball story. They used baseball as a vehicle to tell a really beautiful story about a son and a father trying to connect. And I think that we're doing the same thing. We're using the video game world, the Free City world and video game culture, as a sort of a vehicle to tell this really beautiful and powerful human story."
I like that explanation. I’m not really a baseball fan, but Field of Dreams is a favorite film of mine, and that’s because it tells such a wonderful story. I wish that they would show off some of that “beautiful story” in the trailers for Free Guy, but they mostly revolve around the action and visuals.
Reynolds went on to say that Free Guy is the best moviemaking experience that he’s ever had and that it’s also the best movie he’s ever made, saying:
"I do think it's the best movie making experience that I've ever had easily but also I think the best movie I've ever done. You know, it's the most kind of pertinent to our times, in that sense. I mean, you know, where I feel Deadpool was like a movie that was pertinent to the comic book culture when it came out. This really to me speaks to a broader kind of spectrum of where we are in the world, and not only that, but how we are in the world. So, I think that's one of the reasons I think it's my favorite movie. But it's also, yes, the experience certainly plays into that, but also this incredible cast."
Free Guy was directed by Shawn Levy (Stranger Things, Real Steel), and it also stars Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Taika Waititi. Levy discussed the film’s concept saying:
"That idea was both a big idea conceptually as far as gaming and plot but also a big idea, and maybe this was more important to Ryan and I in those early days, it was a big idea thematically because it felt like something that scratched at ideas that matter and that we can all relate to,. And that was in 2018, and then we made it to 2019, and now in 2020, we really relate to the idea that, 'Oh, wait, maybe the world doesn't need to remain as you find it. Maybe you can have an impact on circumstances around you.'"
Free Guy is currently set to be released on December 11th, 2020.