Apprehensions over the release of “Free Guy” amidst the increasing spread of the Delta variant was assuaged after the movie’s Thursday’s night premier showing. The Ryan Reynolds starrer produced by Disney and Twentieth Century Studios (TCS) hit pay dirt with $2.2M in box office ticket sales from the premier alone.
More can be expected since the movies is set to honor a 45-day theatrical showing worldwide before it hits the Disney Plus Premier streaming channel.
When compared to “Jungle Cruise”, which Disney also released for premier viewing last Thursday, “Free Guy” was just a little short of the $2.7 million raked in by the Dwayne Johnson/Emily Blunt family-oriented movie. Actually, “Jungle Cruise” only has a one-day theater engagement as it immediately became available at the Disney Plus Premier channel.
Another point of comparison is with Ryan Reynolds’ pre-pandemic August release “Hitman’s Bodyguard” that Reynolds co-starred with Samuel Jackson, which scored $1.65 million on opening day.
About “Free Guy” the Movie
Directed by Shawn Levy, a Canadian writer and film director best known lately as the producer-director of the hit TV series “Stranger Things”, “Free Guy” is a sci-fi action comedy created by Matt Lieberman, who co-wrote the screenplay with Zak Penn.
The “Free Guy” plot is about a bank teller named Guy who came to discover that he was just a non-playable background character in an open-world video game called “Free City” The video game however is about to be shut down by game developers Millie (Jodie Comer) and Keys (Joe Keery) but thanks to Guy, he was able to breathe new life into it when decided to rewrite the game’s storyline by becoming the hero.
“Free Guy” viewers who have seen the movie have given it an Audience Rating of 95% at Rotten Tomatoes.