The Movie Free Guy released to American theaters on Aug 13, 2021, in RealD 3D, IMAX and Dolby Cinema formats by 20th Century Studios. The Film has grossed $324 million worldwide making it the 8th most viewed movie in 2021 and received positive reviews from critics, who praised the clever concept and compared it favorably to a combination of action video games and science fiction films such as Ready Player One, The Truman Show, The Matrix, GTA, Cyberpunk 2077 and Fortnite.

   In 2016, Matt Lieberman spent three weeks writing the draft script for Free Guy. Director Shawn Levy originally read the script in 2016 but passed it on. Several years later, Levy was introduced to Ryan Reynolds by Hugh Jackman, a mutual friend, and the duo started to work together on Free Guy after rereading the script. Reynolds who also produced the film, said,” I haven’t been this fully immersed and engaged in something since Deadpool.”

   A lot of the filming took place in Massachusetts in the cities of Worcester, Framingham, and Weymouth, as well as at Revere Beach. The game world was found to compare to those of Grand Theft Auto and Fortnite, production designer Ethan Tobman said that the design of the world drew more inspiration from games like Sims City, The Sims and Red Dead Redemption 2. After the Movie was acquired by Disney, which owns the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, the filmmakers asked for permission to use such iconic weapons as a lightsaber and Captain Americas Shield were granted permission to use all the things that they wanted in the movie.

   The film was initially scheduled to be released on July 3, 2020, but was delayed because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was then moved to Dec 11, 2020. In November 2020, the studio removed the film, along with Death on The Nile, from its upcoming release schedule until further notice. The next month, the movie was rescheduled again for May 21, 2021. In March Ryan Reynolds announced that the film was delayed to its August date. On the 13th of August, the film finally made its debut at The Piazza Grande section of the 74th Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland.