Ryan Reynolds has been riding high all week knowing that his original studio movie Free Guy is making moviegoers happy, along with studio executives apparently too. Just a day after the video game-themed movie was released exclusively to theaters a couple weeks ago, the Deadpool actor shared that Disney has already confirmed they “officially” want a sequel, and now he’s teasing it in a funny way.
Ryan Reynolds took to his Instagram early Friday morning to make another classic one of his jokes, because it’s Ryan freaking Reynolds, and this is the constant in life we all love and take comfort in. Obviously he had to take a dig at the Marvel Cinematic Universe too.
There it is. Ryan Reynolds is excited to get to work on a second Free Guy movie, and he’s thinking about what characters could return for it. He says he can’t wait for the Barista and Cat Lady to team-up in “Phase 5,” as a reference to the MCU’s many phases of films that it has built up over the years. Marvel is currently at the beginning of Phase 4, so far boasting the TV shows WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki, and the movie Black Widow, with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals and Spider-Man: No Way Home coming later this year.
Ryan Reynolds made the joke to inspire his followers to check out the latest bit of marketing for Free Guy that takes a humorous approach to some of the non-player characters that join his character of “Guy” during the film. Characters like “Big City Dreamer,” “Bombshell” and “That Guy Who Can’t Put His Hands Down” don’t exactly have the same ring to it as Marvel characters like Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch or Doctor Strange, but they make do.
Prior to Ryan Reynolds making an exciting sequel announcement, its director, Shawn Levy, told CinemaBlend that the property was “rich with ideas” that could continue into another film, but at that point he didn’t want to speak too soon. Given it’s about an open-world video game, there could certainly be new concepts another Free Guy could tackle. But somehow I doubt these featured characters in the latest clip will be key here.
Free Guy has critics and audiences alike raving about the film overall, and has had a decent box office haul given the circumstances. The movie has reportedly made $131 million worldwide so far, currently making the top 20 worldwide box office hits of 2021, and is at No. 7 domestically.
As far as the MCU goes, we can expect to see Ryan Reynolds in the Marvel universe as Deadpool sometime soon, with the actor reportedly working on a Deadpool 3 script as you read this. Considering the long wait in between Deadpool 2 and the development process, we’d expect Wade Wilson first, but when the time comes, it’ll be exciting to welcome back Free Guy too.
