At long last, Ryan Reynolds blockbuster Free Guy is coming to theaters this Friday, and it stands every chance of doing decent business at the box office, hopefully arresting the decline that’s blighted the industry in the weeks since the one-two punch of Fast & Furious 9 and Black Widow made it look as though things were finally picking up steam after well over a year in the doldrums.
The early reactions called Shawn Levy’s video game-inspired blockbuster the most pleasant surprise of the year, and it’s currently boasting an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes with almost 80 reviews in the bag, continuing the long held belief that the best video game movies aren’t based on a pre-existing property at all.
20th Century Studios may have since removed the entire cast listing from their website, but when it was still live Dwayne Johnson, Hugh Jackman and John Krasinski were all listed as part of the ensemble, so we should be expecting plenty of surprise cameos in Free Guy, whether it’s in-game or part of the real world sequences.
Given that Deadpool made his official Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in a trailer breakdown for the film, there’s been a lot of talk that the Merc with a Mouth could end up dropping by for a surprise guest spot. However, Reynolds poured cold water on that notion in a recent interview, saying that it never even crossed his mind.
“No, I mean, for me, the thing that I love most about Free Guy is that we’re doing something that I think is very increasingly rare, and very hard to do in this current marketplace. Which is open a big blockbuster movie that’s based on nothing but an original idea. I mean, it really isn’t an IP, it’s not a sequel, it’s not based on a comic book, it’s not based on anything. It’s based on a concept and an idea that people are familiar with, which is the video game world. I love that we had that opportunity, so no, I never really felt like I needed to put Deadpool in. He wouldn’t really fit in there. We do have some massive surprises in the movie that are courtesy of getting to work at Disney. But yeah no, I never thought of putting Deadpool in there.”
Big budget blockbusters based on completely original ideas are rare enough as it is, never mind ones that score widespread praise from critics and fans. Free Guy looks to be a fun time at the movies, and it would have been distracting were Deadpool to show up at any point.
