Warning: huge SPOILERS for Free Guy are in play. If you haven’t seen the movie just yet, you’ll probably want to head over to somewhere non-spoilery in the open world that is CinemaBlend.
Right from the opening frames of director Shawn Levy’s film Free Guy, the tone is set for what type of movie we’re about to watch. As Channing Tatum skydives into the world of Free City, with Ryan Reynolds narrating his exploits as an introduction, comedy, easter eggs and cameos are officially on the menu. Dropping celebrities into the movie as if they were candy, there’s quite a few voices and faces you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see; especially when you arrive at the top secret third act cameo. Which, as you’re about to learn, was surprisingly easy to come by.
Speaking with Shawn Levy during the press tour for Free Guy, part of what occupied my mind was that third act barrage of delight that drops in the battle between Ryan Reynolds’ meek bank teller Guy and his hulked-out doppelganger, known simply as Dude. Acting as the final boss in this journey of self discovery and IP theft, Dude pummels Guy pretty badly, until Reynolds’ character regains his magic glasses. And that’s when the fun really begins, as Guy accesses some special and massive Disney-owned easter eggs.
This is the last call for those of you who are spoiler adverse, as Shawn Levy lays out those specific easter eggs, as well as the A-list cameo that came about because of them. So if you’re anticipating seeing Free Guy in a movie theater and you want the freshest experience, we’re about to dive deep into the spoiler well. That being said, here’s how Levy and Ryan Reynolds convinced Disney to let them raid the toy box for Guy’s weapons against Dude:
I have been amazed, and I’m looking for something wood to knock on. I won’t even say the sentence, but the fact that people have been respecting the secrets of the movie has been really shocking and thrilling. Here’s the thing, the Chris Evans thing, and the lightsaber, and the Cap Shield, and the Hulk fist, these were things that, as you said, Ryan and I would come up with ideas fast, and we have this really sympatico energy. So we were working on the movie, and we were like ‘In the third act, we’ve gotta go next level. It’s this protagonist who’s now got expertise in the video game world. What if we could get permission to use a Hulk fist, or a Cap shield, or a lightsaber’? We literally wrote the powers that be at Disney, and we said, ‘Could we use one of these’? And to our astonishment, they said ‘yes’. We said ‘Yes to which’, and they said ‘Yes to all’.
The same propulsive energy that led to the late Alex Trebek making a last minute cameo in Free Guy is exactly what landed Chris Evans in a scene that’s sure to bring the house down. As Guy desperately deploys Captain America’s iconic vibranium shield to the tune of Alan Silvestri’s theme from The Avengers, Evans’ reaction is a very un-Cap-like punchline. It’s a moment that only happened once Disney paved the way to let it happen, and upon learning that fact from Shawn Levy himself, I was just as stunned as he was when he got that fated email.
In service of the mission to go big or go streaming, Free Guy launches into a mini parade of pop culture easter eggs. Captain America’s shield, a Hulk fist and Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber are just the start, as weapons from Fortnite and Portal are also deployed in order for Guy to properly fight Dude. But once the Disney-related assets were approved, that led to Ryan Reynolds securing Chris Evans’ participation in another extremely easy manner, as described by Shawn Levy:
So once the shock of that wore off, literally Ryan just texted Chris Evans, because I guess all handsome movie stars know each other? It’s some network that us normal humans aren’t allowed in. But he knew that Chris was filming Defending Jacob in Boston, and he said ‘If you could come by our set, and if Shawn can get you in and out in 10 minutes, will you come and do this cameo’? And Chris, being the cool guy that he seems to be, and in fact is, said yeah. Literally, he drove by our set, I had a camera waiting, we filmed him in five minutes, he was on his way. And that’s how that happened.
Distinguished readers, you heard it here first: Boston is truly a magical city where all you need to do is text Chris Evans, and he’ll probably show up. Ok, so maybe that’s not exactly the lesson to take away from Free Guy’s method of cameo procurement. But what is apparent, through this and Shawn Levy’s Reel Blend interview, is that if you ask nicely, the worst that someone can do is say no. While the best scenario is the Captain America star making a cameo by saying something that Steve Rogers would have to call out as “Language!” It's all part of the magic in Levy and Reynolds' humanistic blockbuster, which is ready to make an impression on the audiences that seek it out.
We may have spoiled the cameo here, but we’re sure as hell not going to spoil the line, as it's just too good of a moment to divulge. You’ll just have to go and see Free Guy, which is currently only in theaters, to learn the truth of that really funny moment. And while you’re there, keep your ears open, as some pretty heavy hitting vocal cameos will reveal even more superstars in the Free City realm. While we're still not naming names just yet, some folks near and dear to Ryan Reynolds drop in, and it's not too hard to identify their voices. And last, but not least, you can search for the easter eggs known as Ryan Reynolds' other films out this year, thanks to our 2021 release schedule.
