Ryan Reynolds combined The Truman Show and Ready Player One for his 2021 comedy Free Guy, where he starred as a non-playable character (predicting the weirdest TikTok trend of 2023) who is unhappy with his lot. He’ll be back in the game when the Free Guy 2 release date comes around.
Free Guy was a decent box office success, earning more than $300m worldwide as one of the first major new movies to arrive in multiplexes after the pandemic. In our Free Guy review, we called it one of Reynolds’ best family movies, and so we’re keen to learn more about a sequel. We want to head back to the colorful world of Free City ASAP.
Free Guy 2 release date speculation
Free Guy 2 is still on the way, but the team has gone back to the drawing board to redevelop the script, so we don’t think the film will arrive until 2026 at the earliest.
Within days of Free Guy hitting cinemas in August 2021, Ryan Reynolds announced that Disney was keen on a sequel. He noted with his trademark sarcasm that, after the movie being heavily promoted as an original, non-IP project, it was now set to become a franchise.
By March 2022, the Free Guy 2 script was almost finished, and Steve Asbell of 20th Century Studios was talking about “Free Guy movies” beyond the direct sequel to the original. This looked like a franchise that was going places at warp speed. Then Reynolds and director Shawn Levy went off to make Deadpool 3 together, and a giant pink elephant walked into the room on high heels.
Levy updated fans in September 2023 and, for the first time ever, admitted that Free Guy 2 was “not assured.” And part of the problem? Barbie. It’s one of the best movies of 2023, bringing inevitable aftershocks.
“We are developing a sequel, but the truth is that you now have Barbie that has obviously left a mark about a character in a fictional world who comes to self-awareness,” Levy said. “So, we’re only gonna make Free Guy 2 if it’s different than the first movie and if it’s different from other movies.”
However, the team will now be back at the drawing board after the 2023 Writers Strike, and Levy even confirmed as recently as November 2023 [via Parade] that “we are developing a script at Disney and 20th Century.”
Reynolds and Levy will be busy on one of the most exciting upcoming Marvel movies for most of 2024, so we think it’s unlikely that Free Guy 2 will start filming until late 2024 or even 2025. With hefty post-production required, it very likely won’t be until 2026 before we’ll be able to see where this video game world goes next.
Who’s in the Free Guy 2 cast?
Ryan Reynolds will almost definitely be back as Guy, the lovable NPC since it wouldn’t be Free Guy without him.
We’d expect the hilarious Lil Rel Howery to return for more scene-stealing as Guy’s friend Buddy, and we think the other side of the coin could be provided by a return for Taika Waititi’s tech villain, as long as they can find a gap in the dude’s truly absurd schedule.
Jodie Comer and Joe Keery, who are also exceptionally busy these days, have a less certain fate. Their story arc was neatly resolved at the end of the first movie, but their romance and career in the game development world could definitely be explored further.
Ultimately, though, Free Guy 2 has legs as long as Reynolds is at the top of the ensemble. When he’s on form, his best comedy movies are about as much fun as you can have in a theater.
Here’s the expected Free Guy 2 cast list:
- Ryan Reynolds as Guy
- Lil Rel Howery as Buddy
- Jodie Comer as Millie
- Joe Keery as Walter “Keys” McKey
- Taika Waititi as Antwan Hovachelik
What will happen in Free Guy 2?
Free Guy concluded with Guy and his fellow NPCs living in a quiet, utopian world. That certainly won’t last long in Free Guy 2, and we’d expect to see a new villain on the scene.
The Free Guy ending saw Taika Waititi’s narcissistic tech boss Antwan in a great deal of trouble, but these Silicon Valley types never seem to stay quiet for long. And let’s face it, we’re not short of real-world inspirations for megalomaniacal bad guys from the tech world. So whether it’s Antwan or a completely new villain, someone will be messing with Guy’s game world.
Meanwhile, Millie and Keys are now in a relationship in the real world, so it will be fascinating to catch up on how they’re getting on. We know they’ve worked together on games in the past, but perhaps they’ll be struggling to come up with something new.
After all, there’s only so much entertainment players will be able to get from a world as peaceful and lovely as the game where Guy currently lives. Any attempt to introduce a bit of excitement could be disastrous for someone like Guy, though we’ve seen that he has his fair share of combat skills, too.
Is there a Free Guy 2 trailer?
Free Guy 2 doesn’t have a trailer yet, since it hasn’t started shooting, but we think one will arrive in late 2025.
This is all because of Deadpool 3, and since we think Free Guy could be heading for a 2026 release date, we’re hoping they’ll have filmed part of the sequel by then.
But while you wait, we’ve got some trademark Reynolds shenanigans for you in this behind-the-scenes look at how the actor transformed into the ultra-muscular Dude in Free Guy. We’re sure this is completely serious, and there was no use of a body double. It’s all Reynolds, naturally.
Where can I watch Free Guy 2?
Free Guy 2 will be a theatrical-only release at first, just like its predecessor.
However, this is a Disney production in the wake of its acquisition of 20th Century Studios, so we’d expect the movie to join the ranks of everything new on Disney Plus within just a few months of its release. The first Free Guy is available to watch there right now.
Despite not being based on a real game, we think Free Guy is right up there with the best video game movies. The genre was believed to be cursed for years, as we explained in our look at Hollywood’s 40-year struggle with videogame movies. As for the future, take a look at what we know about the Iron Lung movie release date and find out why Iron Lung is about to break a brutal Evil Dead record.
For more about the future of games and movies, head on over to our friends at PCGamesN to learn why videogames like Project 007 are the real future of James Bond.