The VFX supervisor of 2021's hit Ryan Reynolds movie, Free Guy, reveals that the gameplay scenes in the film initially looked very different.
The VFX supervisor of 2021's hit Ryan Reynolds movie, Free Guy, reveals that the gameplay scenes in the film initially looked very different. Directed by Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum, Stranger Things) and written by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn (The Incredible Hulk, Ready Player One), the story of Free Guy revolves around Guy, a bank teller who realizes he is actually a non-playable character in an online multiplayer video game and becomes the hero of the story as he tries to save his friends from the game's new owner, who wants to delete them.
The cast of Free Guy sees the Deadpool actor star as the likable main character, and he is joined by a supporting cast that includes the likes of Jodie Comer (Killing Eve, The Last Duel), Joe Keery (Stranger Things), Lil Rel Howery (Get Out), Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Taika Waititi, who plays the game's owner, Antwan Hovachelik. After a year-long delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Free Guy finally made its theatrical debut in August 2021 and opened to positive reviews from critics and general audiences alike, grossing over $300 million worldwide.
In a recent interview with THR, the visual effects supervisor of Free Guy, Swen Gillberg, details the work that went on behind the scenes to create a unique look during the film's gameplay shots. He reveals that the digital versions of Reynolds originally looked "extremely photo-real," to a point where "you couldn’t tell it was gameplay." He also mentions that they attempted an "extremely cartoony" look which didn't work, either, as the audience wouldn't empathize with the character. Gillberg cites popular video games like Grand Theft Auto as inspiration to make the actor "emotive enough" in the sequences taking place within the game. Check out what he had to say below:
We went down this other route and made it extremely cartoony. That was not empathetic enough for the audience. So we dialed it back to something probably closer to Grand Theft Auto. And we used all the scanning for that, to get Ryan’s in-game play emotive enough for the audience to care about him.
Free Guy's massive online world of Free City understandably required myriad different types of visual effects, as elements such as the real world, the in-game setting, and the gameplay itself needed to stand out from each other. However, a lot of work did go into creating different versions of Reynolds himself, including the character of Dude, played by stuntman Aaron Reed, who was a stronger, enhanced version of Guy. Gillberg also states that the actor was put through the wringer, needing to be scanned in "every which way" possible for the creation of his digital stunt double. The lengths that Gillberg and his team went to are understandable, since what the audience feels about the protagonist is crucial to the film working as a whole, and an exaggerated look for Guy would most likely have alienated them from the character.
Free Guy marked the American special effects artist's third collaboration with Levy, following 2011's Hugh Jackman-starring Real Steel and 2014's Night At The Museum: Secret of the Tomb. While it may have taken quite a bit of effort to get the result in the film, it's safe to say that the VFX team's efforts weren't in vain. They seamlessly captured the extensive in-game world and personalities of Free City that were essential to the story of Free Guy.
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Source: THR
