'Free Guy' Has Better Than Expected Opening Weekend
by EG
Ryan Reynolds' video game action comedy Free Guy was the top movie at the box office this weekend. Its audience was mostly made up of young men and boys, but its ticket sales were more than expected. It also sold more tickets than last week's winning release, The Suicide Squad. Read on for details.
Free Guy has spawned a new Hollywood studio franchise after opening well ahead of expectations despite the precarious state of the box office recovery.
The action-comedy — starring Ryan Reynolds and directed by Shawn Levy — grossed $28.4 million from 4,165 North American theaters to easily top the chart. Overseas, it took in $22.5 million from 41 markets for a global start of $51 million (Free Guy doesn’t yet have a release date in China).
The domestic performance of the family-friendly, PG-13 film is a much-needed boost for Hollywood as consumer confidence dips again amid the Delta variant and a surge in COVID-19 cases. The international marketplace is also being heavily impacted in numerous countries, including France and Italy, where proof of vaccination is now required.
Headed into the weekend, Disney and 20th Century Studios predicted a North America opening of $17 million to $20 million. Others were more bullish, but most didn’t predict more than $22 million. Disney inherited the project when acquiring 20th Century Fox, where Reynolds had a close relationship with then vice-chairman and head of production Emma Watts (she’s now running Paramount’s motion picture group).
Free Guy even bested the domestic launch of The Suicide Squad a week ago. One difference — Levy’s film is receiving a 45-day exclusive theatrical release in theaters before going to Disney. From Warner Bros., Suicide Squad was made available simultaneously on HBO Max.
Video-game adaptations are never an easy sell and have a decidedly mixed track record at the box office. Plus, Free Guy was delayed no fewer than four times because of the COVID-19 crisis, posing numerous marketing challenges for Disney and the filmmakers.
Free Guy, buoyed by strong reviews, great word-of-mouth and an A CinemaScore, underscores Reynolds’ star power, as well as the growing partnership between he and Levy. On Saturday, Disney officially asked for a sequel, according to a tweet from Reynolds.
Among those turning out, 71 percent of the audience was under the age of 35, including 50 percent between ages 18 and 34, the most likely group to go to theaters in the pandemic era. Males made up 59 percent of the audience, while Free Guy did huge business on Imax and other premium large format screens that are a major draw for fanboys.
In the film, Reynolds plays a bank teller who discovers he is actually a non-player character in a video game. He’s determined to become the hero and save his friends from getting deleted by the game’s creator. Taika Waititi, Jodie Comer, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar and Joe Keery also star.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.