Boston Is ‘The Greatest Backlot On Earth’ In New Film ‘Free Guy’

BOSTON (Aug. 12, 2021) - Boston is a central character in “Free Guy,” the new action-comedy starring Ryan Reynolds. Filmed in the city in the summer of 2019, the movie is finally hitting theaters after the pandemic delayed its original release - and it’s worth the wait.

Boston is the backdrop for “Free City,” an interactive video game with all the trappings of a violent, shoot-em-up format. Reynolds is Guy, a background character who works at a bank (the Framingham Bank Building) that is repeatedly robbed by the "real" players. His only role is to stand in the background, until the day he realizes there’s more to life than being a non-playing character, and he gets in the game.

Boston provides the perfect background for Guy’s adventures, and those of his real-life counterparts: the players and coders who brought him to life, played by Emmy winner Jodie Comer and Massachusetts native Joe Keery. Taika Waititi, Lil Rey Howery and Utkarsh Ambudkar also star, bringing even more levity and humor to the clever comedy.

Director Shawn Levy (“Night at the Museum,” “Stranger Things”) told Screen Rant he wanted to build Free City in a place that “didn't feel overshot.”

It's a “fictional-every city, a fictional almost self-consciously generic, timeless, every city,” Levy said. “Boston has such an eclecticism of architecture. I like that you've got a brick building next to a Superman looking granite skyscraper, next to something more ornamental.”

According to Kevin Slane at Boston.com, Free City is mostly made up of the Financial District and Liberty Square. “Movie magic brings Revere Beach right to the edge of South Station, and additional scenes were filmed in Framingham, Lynn, Randolph, Weymouth and Worcester,” Slane writes.

Slevy said it was important to embrace “the diversity of Boston architecture” in his highly original film, which is pure fun at the theater - with unexpected depth and layered storytelling.

“And I also love the fact that basically every Saturday and Sunday, we're able to shut down a multi block quadrant of Boston and use it as the greatest backlot on earth.”

"Free Guy" opens Aug. 12 at AMC Boston Common, Regal Fenway RPX and theaters nationwide.