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 (who also produced) as a bank teller who discovers that he is actually a non-player character in an open-world video game and becomes the hero of the story, saving his friends from deletion by the game’s creator (Taika Waititi). Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, and Utkarsh Ambudkar also star.
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 received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the clever concept and compared it favorably as a combination of Ready Player One, The Truman Show, The Matrix, and Grand Theft Auto.
