Free Guy's opening weekend was considered a success, according to both star Ryan Reynolds and Disney, owners of all media everywhere for all time please don't sue me. Ahem.
Box office numbers for Free Guy totaled $28.4 million in North America and another $23 million elsewhere for $51 million globally. That's pretty good, considering the Delta Variant of COVID has caused a fourth (or third, or fifth) wave of the pandemic. Free Guy easily beats out The Suicide Squad, although it's still far behind giants like Black Widow and Fast 9.
Still, it's apparently enough for Disney to greenlight a sequel. "Aaaannnnd after 3 years messaging #FreeGuy as an original IP movie, Disney confirmed today they officially want a sequel," wrote Reynolds on Twitter yesterday, adding that he would consider it a failure if the sequel wasn't titled “Albuquerque Boiled Turkey."
Related: Ryan Reynolds Is Mario, Doomguy, And Minecraft Steve In New Free Guy Posters
"This is the first non-IP, non-sequel that Disney has released in literally years. And not just because of the pandemic, but because of the culture of our industry, which more and more rarely bets, and bets big–they'll bet small–but bets big on a new, original movie," director Shawn Levy told Deadline in an interview. "If we end up evolving in an industry that is nothing but sequels and franchises, we'll be the poorer for it. Not just as an industry, but as a culture."
There was significant concern that the ongoing pandemic would keep people at home, and although the movie certainly would have done better in the pre-COVID times, $51 million in an opening weekend is apparently enough for Disney.
So why did Free Guy do better than Suicide Squad? Well, perhaps it was the somewhat more timely Fortnite crossover where shirtless Ryan Reynolds became available as a costume. Or maybe it was the Halo tie-in where Reynolds appeared with Ninja alongside an actual real-life Warthog armored combat vehicle.
Or maybe, as Levy said, we’re all just desperate for something new.
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