Free Guy is a 2021 American science fiction action comedy film directed by Shawn Levy from a screenplay by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, and a story by Lieberman. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as a bank teller, named Guy, who discovers that he is actually a non-player character in an open-world video game and becomes the hero of the story, trying to save his friends from deletion by the game’s creator. Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Taika Waititi also star in the film.
The film premiered at the Piazza Grande section of the 74th Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland on August 10, 2021. Following a year-long delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Free Guy was released theatrically in the United States on August 13, 2021, in RealD 3D, IMAX, and Dolby Cinema formats by 20th Century Studios. The film has grossed $332 million worldwide making it the ninth highest-grossing film of 2021 and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the clever concept and compared it favorably to a combination of science fiction films and action video games such as Ready Player One, The Truman Show, The Matrix, Grand Theft Auto, and Fortnite
