You’ve got to hand it to Ryan Reynolds for his unique approach to marketing, whether it be his Aviation gin, Mint Mobile or his feature film projects. Having debuted Deadpool in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by slyly using the Merc with a Mouth as a promotional tool to hype upcoming blockbuster Free Guy, he’s at it again, except this time it’s a lot weirder.
In the potentially spoilery clip, we find out that Taika Waititi’s Antwan has created a bigger, better and buffer model of Reynolds’ Guy to put into the world of Free City in an effort to try and stop the friendly NPC from breaking out of his loop. An unfinished build, the hulking meathead is known only as Dude, with his catchphrase literally being the word “catchphrase”, because nobody’s managed to come up with a real one yet.
What follows is a bizarre interview where Reynolds has his face jarringly pasted onto somebody else’s body, and it includes a gag about him being so jacked that he can no longer fit into his Deadpool costume, in among jokes about his child being born fully grown with shoes on, and a morning protein shake comprised entirely of human muscle.
Like we said earlier, it’s weird as hell, but it’s definitely an interesting way to market a mega budget family film that’s less than two weeks away from release having been delayed by well over a year. Free Guy has been generating some strong early reactions, and while the brief clip of Dude doesn’t give too much away in terms of plot specifics, it does indicate that audiences are in for a wild and unpredictable ride when Shawn Levy’s latest hits the big screen.