Exactly. You need much more of a big deal tentpole release to get me in the theater right now. if that. This is something I would have checked out at the Alamo in normal times just because, y’know, that experience is good enough to be worth the trip and the money on a punt. But my Alamo isn’t open (sensibly). And that’s probably not gonna change in the near future. And I’m not even sure I value a regular theatrical experience enough to go to one in normal times for a big movie, let alone during a pandemic on a movie I have no special expectations for.
Pretty much this. I’m sad to miss out because it looks great, but I’ll wait until either COVID isn’t a real concern or however long until it finally does hit a streaming service (probably next year, I would guess)
If it weren’t Covid times I’d have a ticket. Now I’ll wait for digital.
I’m sure I would enjoy this film but I am not going to a theatre. Shang-Chi and Black Widow are/were in the same boat for me.
I’ll most likely see this. I’m in one of the most-highly vaccinated areas of the country, and even covid aside, I try to find screenings with the fewest other people around.
I commend you all for being so careful. We have been more relaxed about precautions since we were vaccinated and local government relaxed their own guidelines. I should probably re-evaluate our activities, though we mostly stay at home.
All my kids were excited for this (saturated with ads on YouTube, plus some of their favorite streamers have cameos) and we were celebrating my 2nd’s 18th birthday and impending departure for college. AND, we live in a pretty well-vaccinated area! So, we went to see this last night. The theater was far from full, but we weren’t alone.
It’s thoroughly enjoyable, if light and doofy most of the time. Reynolds is in fine form. It executes pretty well on the premise. There’s a whole subplot about the game developers who created the GTA-like game that I wasn’t expecting from seeing the trailers. It’s a good night out at the movies with the (older) kids! I hope it does well!
Is there any info on when home release will be? I hope it underperforms at theatres and gets fast tracked for home release as a result.
I went in not knowing much. Was optimistic about the buzz but came out pretty meh about it. As a spectacle, it’s a fun enough ride I suppose. But the video game world came off pretty lifeless and toxic. The player base was horrible across the board. The way the movie portrays the game felt like a marketing team asked teenagers to describe what video games were like. There’s no soul to it, which admittedly is part of what they were going for, but I would have liked it more if I felt like the creators actually cared about games. I suspect part of the problem is that I’m just not the target audience and that a younger demographic might think it is pretty great. It was hard to empathize with any of the NPC characters when one of their central characteristics was for them to be one dimensional and boring. They have an arc but I never felt like the movie tried hard enough for me to care about them even if it wanted me to. As a gamer and programmer, personally I was unable to turn my brain off about how totally nonsensical the drama surrounding the game was, but YMMV. Ryan Reynolds does a nice job as usual, and the rest of the cast perform their roles about as well as I could expect, but the material they’re working with is just not very good.
Seems accurate for the type of Fortnite/GTA multiplayer game they were portraying, or at least accurate enough for playing broadly to the stereotypes for laughs.
Again, I think that’s all intentional. Asking teenagers to describe what video games are like seems like…a recipe for success? Knowing your audience? Correct? And as you point out, there’s intentionally no soul to “Free City”, and that’s a part of the whole real world plot of the movie: corporate money-makers and soulless execs exploiting and stifling the idealistic artistic developers, milking the franchise for sequels and IP, etc.
I don’t know man, as a comedy I thought it landed consistently, and this is the type of role Ryan Reynolds is perfect for. If the real world drama felt a little thin, I think that’s just typical of a comedy and less about some sort of failure to understand their audience or gaming.
Anyway, we’re masked, vaccinated, and don’t have any unvaccinated household members, so we took in a matinee and really enjoyed it. I’m afraid no movie is going to come out of 2021 with a box office “success”, but this was a lot of fun. I’d love a sequel, even though it would undermines the already lightweight idealism of artistry over IP that the movie briefly, superficially, tries to explore.
I just looked at IMDb, and I caught none of the voice cameos. I did get a good laugh out of the much more visible cameo at the end though.
Sounds like HBO Max after 45 days:
Well, since I have HBO Max, that’s sorted…
I don’t disagree with you, but for those reasons I thought the movie itself was very shallow. They were making their point (which imo isn’t a very novel one in 2021) and as a result, it wasn’t a world I cared much about. It was ok as a popcorn action movie but also forgettable in a lot of ways.
Technically that headline doesn’t match the article, which only explains a previous Fox deal with Warner is why Free Guy can’t debut on Disney+ without a theatrical exclusive window, even if Disney had cold feet about COVID and the box office and wished they could do another Disney+ Premiere release. But it doesn’t sound like it’s 100% certain it will show up on HBOMax after that. I don’t really know what the alternative is, but it doesn’t quite confirm that it will stream on HBOMax.
And I agree with you, it was shallow, I just thought peak Ryan Reynolds and a bunch or video game references were pretty excellent as an comedy.
My biggest complaint is probably that they under utilized Channing Tatum, who was fun in his limited role but could totally have done more.
No doubt that RR holds everything together enough that I didn’t hate it completely. To his deep credit, I am not sure another actor could have done that.
Could The Rock have pulled it off?
Probably not this specific role. Maybe Chris Pratt.
I think the alternative is in 45 days it shows up for premium video-on-demand and/or digital purchase and rental then at some point after that it shows up on HBO Max.
I’d love to be wrong as I’m on HBO Max, but it does seem like a digital purchase/rental period before showing up on a streaming service is standard path for a movie that’s not owned directly by someone with their own streaming service. For example, I keep on going back and forth on whether I should digitally purchase or rent “Nobody” because I hear it’s good and it’s not yet on any streaming service.
I don’t see any benefit to Disney for them to put it up immediately on HBO Max instead of milking the other revenue streams available to them before letting HBO put it up.
I assume it all comes down to what the contract says. It just seems likely that a contract between Fox and HBO would have given Fox an opportunity for digital sales and rentals before going to HBO.