One of the major running gags throughout Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds’ Free Guy was the rampant desire on the part of the film, television, and gaming industries to continually return to the well and mine a well-known IP for inspiration at the expense of originality.
While the action comedy did go on to become one of the best-reviewed and highest-grossing original concepts of the past two years, it became an ironic victim of its own success when Disney demanded a sequel. The duo’s latest film comes to Netflix today, and Levy is already addressing talk of The Adam Project launching a franchise.
On the surface, a time traveling sci-fi adventure that doubles as an intimate father/son story and family drama doesn’t need to spawn a slew of follow ups, and Levy echoed that sentiment himself in an interview with IndieWire.
“On The Adam Project, there was so much love for it in early cuts at Netflix, and the question of a sequel came up. And Ryan and I talked about it and we both said, ‘You know what? This thing is exactly what we set out to make, and I think we’re just going to leave this here.’
There was never pressure to leave it more open ended, but I suppose, gun to my head, I could come up with sequel ideas for The Adam Project. I’m not currently inclined to pursue those, because this movie resolves itself with exactly the feeling that I wanted, which is that combination of warmth and tears, but also hope. I want to leave that one as is.”
It’s not surprising to hear that Netflix have already gauged Reynolds and Levy’s interest in expanding the mythology, but it sounds as though the filmmaker has yet to be convinced that The Adam Project 2 would be a worthwhile endeavor.
