SPOILER WARNING: This article contains minor spoilers for Free Guy, now in theaters.
It's game on for Matt Lieberman. Free Guy -- The Addams Family and Scoob! screenwriter's latest endeavor -- is sure to score high with audiences.
In the film, Ryan Reynolds portrays Guy, an affable bank teller who exists inside an open-world video game as an NPC, or non-player character. In gaming lingo, NPCs are the expendable fodder typically found in the background. His life gets turned upside down when the mysterious Millie/Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer) grabs his attention. Guy must level up and become the hero of his own story in order to thwart the game's developer from pulling the plug on them permanently.
Lieberman recently spoke to CBR about the inspiration behind Free Guy, celebrating the video game culture, the power of Ryan Reynolds and potential sequels.
CBR: You sold the script for Free Guy back in 2016. What was the inspiration behind it?
Matt Lieberman: I was sort of stuck in my own lanes in life. I was feeling a little stuck. The idea came like, "What if you had the cheat codes to life?" I'm a big gamer. I was like, "What if you could walk around the streets and see power-ups that gave you money and different powers and health?" I sort of backed into it that way. "Oh, you would be in this big sandbox game, if that were happening." Bingo. Lightbulb. There's the idea.
Did you always envision this as a live-action feature or something more in animation?
Always live-action. A couple of people might have brought up animation and I was like, "What? No. It has to be live-action."
How important was it to craft a narrative that appealed to gamers and a broader audience?
Totally important. The line to skirt is making this resonate with gamers, but making my mother -- who has never played a game in her life -- be able to understand it. I think it speaks how great video games have become, that they've become these worlds of themselves. That's all you need to understand to be able to lock in. "Oh, he's in this video game that is a virtual city. People come into it and wreak havoc." If you can get your head around that, that's all you need. Just like The Truman Show. I don't think you need to understand reality television.
Considering you sold this script five years ago, at one point did the project really start to gain momentum and take shape?
When Ryan Reynolds jumped on and said he wanted to make it. It was in development. The studio was always very excited about it. We were flirting with a lot of interesting names. But I got that email one day saying, "Are you sitting down? Ryan Reynolds is in." It literally went from 0 to 100 in a day. Then, a couple of weeks later, director Shawn Levy was on board. The next thing I knew it, I was writing a draft with Ryan and Shawn, which was a dream. I couldn't believe it.
Ryan Reynolds. That is huge. How did you react when he was cast as the lead?
I nearly fell off my chair. I never would have let myself indulge, to believe, that Ryan would ever want to be Guy. He's so perfect for it. He has such a comic voice. He has great ideas. He's taken it to places I didn't even imagine was possible.
Ryan and Shawn helped shape this script. Can you talk about their input and what they added to the story?
In the original script, Guy was more of a cynical character. He was looking at the world, saying, "Why are we putting up with all this chaos? Why don't we do something about it?" Ryan, very wisely, thought he should be a character who was a little more naïve and was happy with the world. That gives the character a further place to go.
Shawn wanted to bring more of a humanity to the characters, give the emotional story and the romance of it all, give a depth and emotion. And, also, depth to the real world. Zak Penn really helped with that, giving more dimension to Jodie.
And Ryan is known for punching up the dialogue…
Yes. Having seen Ryan in action, he is a great actor. He is so smart, not just as a comedian, but as a storyteller and producer. I would wager any line you hear in a movie that sounds like Ryan Reynolds is probably from Ryan Reynolds.
A lot of times, you hand over a script and you are not involved with it after a certain point. It sounds like you were hands-on during production.
Not throughout production. This is definitely not one of those experiences where they take your script and go, "Thank you very much," and you never hear from anybody. When Zak did his pass, the first thing he did was call me up and I was able to give notes all the way through to production. Once production starts, I think the only people who were making changes were Shawn and Ryan. I just went to visit them a couple of times.
What was your favorite set that you toured?
The apartments. That was so smart, what he did with those. And just building out the world of Free City… Every picture I saw on set, it felt like a real place. This thing that came out of your head, taking shape, and walking through it and seeing Free City Bank and Free City Grocery Store and police cars, the whole thing just looks like a big piece of candy.
As for scenes, the scene where he puts on the glasses, that was the first scene that I ever thought of. To see that come to life was wish fulfilling for me. I almost cried. It's done so well. I love the scene between Guy and Buddy in Buddy's apartment. That's an important scene and gets into what I think this movie is about. I love the scene where he rallies the NPCs. That developed into something really cool and gives me goosebumps.
The Mariah Carey song "Fantasy" features prominently in the trailer. What's the story behind that?
When I did my draft with Ryan and Shawn, it was Ryan's idea to have an Outfield song, "Your Love." Then, somewhere in production, it was Ryan's idea to turn it into Mariah Carey. It's one of the stimuli that ends up unlocking Guy. There are a few connections that he has with Millie.
It feels like the sky is the limit in terms of world building and potential for this universe. How much have you thought about a possible sequel?
I've thought a lot about it. I started thinking about it the second I wrote the end, and nobody had even read it before. I agree. There's so many places this could go. I have big ideas for it. There's surprising things you can do with the world and the characters, new characters and ones that were cut out. I think it has lots of potential. I would love to keep playing in this world.
Free Guy is now in theaters.