As you may have gathered from the title, we’re going to be diving into spoiler territory from here on out, so you might want to head back if you haven’t yet checked out Free Guy.
Ryan Reynolds’ video game-inspired blockbuster premiered in theaters today, and looking at the strong reviews, it’s set to score a solid opening weekend at the box office by the standards of the pandemic era.
It certainly helps that it comfortably ranks as one of the year’s best blockbusters, and it’s packed with Easter Eggs to pop culture as a whole, not just the video game industry. In fact, there are several heavy hitters who pop up across the film without their faces appearing onscreen, most notably Reynolds’ good buddies Hugh Jackman and Dwayne Johnson.
Jackman shows up at the very beginning, after we’ve already seen Channing Tatum, when a masked player hands off a vital piece of information to Jodie Comer’s Milly. His face is never seen, but it’s unmistakably the former Wolverine. Later on, a masked bank robber holds up Guy’s place of employment, and while his face isn’t shown either, it’s very clearly The Rock trying to hide his real voice a little bit.
Later on, just as we revealed a long time ago, Chris Evans appears for a split second after Guy conjures Captain America’s shield to defend himself against hulking nemesis Dude, complete with The Avengers theme swelling in the background. In a new interview, Reynolds explained how several of these guest spots came to be.
“And the thing I’ll never take for granted is the idea that you can be shooting a movie that big, like Free Guy, and call someone up and just be like, ‘Is there any way you’d maybe jump in and do this little cameo?’. Chris happened to live in Boston was like, ‘I’ll be there in five minutes’. He didn’t ask what it was. I could’ve said it’s the most graphic nude scene you will ever do in your life. But he didn’t even ask. He just showed up. He was there. We had him shot in and out in less than five minutes.
He required nothing. He just was like, ‘For the love of the game’. And I’ve known Chris for probably 10 years now. And so that was great. And then there’s a whole bunch of other cameos you might not have noticed. Hugh Jackman’s in there. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s in there. John Krasinski’s in there. Who am I leaving out? Hugh Jackman. That guy. Little cameos here and there.”
Free Guy doesn’t lean as heavily on cameos as you might think, but it’s still fun to pick them out and see who you can notice. There’s definitely a couple that might have you watching the movie a second time to pick up.