[Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for Free Guy.]

From director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things, the Night at the Museum franchise), the adventure comedy Free Guy follows Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a bank teller who lives a simple existence of earnest positivity and optimism, until life as he knows it is turned upside down when the mysterious Molotovgirl (Jodie Comer) catches his eye. Upon learning that he is merely a background player in the ultra-violent, open-world video game Free City and that the woman of his dreams is actually a somewhat reserved video game designer named Millie, he is tested in a way that will force him to learn whether he has what it takes to become the hero of his own story.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, screenwriter Matt Lieberman, who wrote Free Guy as a spec script, talked about what sparked the idea for the film, the process of finally getting it to the screen, how much things changed once Reynolds and Levy got involved, some of the elements that were cut, Easter eggs, the original ending, and whether he has ideas for a sequel. He also talked about the upcoming animated feature Rumble, set to be released in 2022, his Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride script for Disney, and what made him want to do a Short Circuit reboot.

Collider: I had so much fun with this movie. I had no idea that I needed a video game rom-com in my life, and it was just delightful, so thank you.

MATT LIEBERMAN: Thank you. And no, that’s awesome. And yeah, I can’t wait to see it when the big crowd, so yeah.

You wrote this a few years ago now. What was it that inspired you to write the film? Did it start with the world, was there a specific aspect of the story, was it a particular character, or was it a combination of things?

LIEBERMAN: It was a combination of things, but the spark of the idea was definitely, what if you had the cheat codes to life? That’s where it started. What if you could walk around and suddenly see power-ups everywhere that gave you money or special powers? I backed into it that way. I was like, “Well, if that was happening, I guess you would be in a Grand Theft Auto world.” I play a lot of Grand Theft Auto. I’m a big gamer. It’s not bullshit, but I’ve always felt bad beating up NPCs. It’s a thing for me. There’s some karmic weirdness about it that I never quite feel right about. Running over people or beating them up without a mission feels bad. I can relate to that. It sometimes makes me feel like a background character, myself.

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Image via 20th Century Studios

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How long did it take to write this? Was it something that you wrote quickly, or did it evolve and change over a period of time that you were working on it?

LIEBERMAN: I had the idea for at least a year. I knew it was a good idea and I was thinking about putting it together as a pitch and some interesting talent came and went. It was literally five years ago, August 2016, where I felt stuck in my own life, in a way. I definitely felt like an NPC or a cartoon character, where every morning I would wake up, raise the shades, go feed the dog, and feel stuck in my lane, and I felt that was the time to write it. I wrote the first draft in two weeks, a lot of which is still in the movie, to this day. It was something that came through me almost.

When did it first start to get studio and filmmaker attention? Was that something that happened quickly after you wrote it? I know it took awhile to actually get made, but you had had interest in it before then, right?

LIEBERMAN: Totally, yeah. I wrote it in August and we played around with it in September. It was one of those dream weekends. When you sell a spec script, you send it out to a wide net of people, and we got interest from heroes of mine. Everybody wanted to do it on that Monday, and then on Tuesday Donald Trump was elected president. By Wednesday, the town suddenly felt very chilly. There were a couple of buyers involved and Fox stepped up in a big way. That really felt like the right place for it, so we sold it to them. Over the next year or two, there were very interesting filmmakers and talent that want them to be involved. As soon as Ryan [Reynolds] got involved and was like, “I wanna make this,” it went from zero to a hundred in a minute. And then (director) Shawn Levy came on board. And then, I was writing a draft with them and I couldn’t believe it.

free-guy-screenwriter Matt Lieberman
Image via Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Disney

I would imagine you wrote this without thinking about Ryan Reynolds as the character, so what was it like for you to then picture him in this role that you’d created?

LIEBERMAN: I wouldn’t dare let myself think that Ryan Reynolds would get involved with my script, so it was definitely a pinch myself moment. I literally wrote a draft with him, and he had great ideas from the start. In the original spec, Guy started as more of a cynical character like, “Why are we living in this world?” Ryan, very smartly, wanted to start him off in more of an innocent place and as more of a guy who is happy where he was, which gives him further places to go. He brought his voice. Like with Deadpool, everything you see from Ryan, that is Ryan. He is just so talented, so smart and so funny, and he brought tons of stuff to the script, right from the start. It was a dream to write it with him and Shawn, who also brought this layer of humanity to it, which wasn’t there. And then, Zak Penn came on for a draft and added great stuff to the story. He fleshed out the real world in a way that it really hadn’t been. He really made that, the love story, and the rom-com of it all really land at the end.

What was that process like for you, having another writer work on your script?

LIEBERMAN: It’s definitely something you have to get used to, especially as a feature writer. It comes with the territory. I definitely think, if the studio is spending hundreds of millions or tens of millions of dollars on something, they’re gonna say, “Let’s get a lot of eyeballs on this.” I wrote it with Ryan and Shawn, and Shawn has had lots of writers look at all his movies, so I knew that was coming. Zak was a mensch. He called me right away and we talked through stuff. It only feels bad, if you’re just abandoned. I wanted this movie to be as good as possible and the best idea should win, and that’s what happened.

It sounds like you still feel like it’s your movie, which sometimes is not the case.

LIEBERMAN: I have had that experience before. I won’t say which movie. It loses the sparkle, and then, depending on how it’s received, sometimes you’re blamed for the stuff you didn’t even put in and didn’t agree with. That can hurt sometimes. But this was a dream experience, from beginning to end, for sure.

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Image via 20th Century Studios

Were there any ideas that had to be cut due to budget? Was there anything you wanted to do that just was too big to do?

LIEBERMAN: Definitely a lot of things were cut for budget. There were some little things, like that scene at the park where they’re on the swings. That was a carnival at a street fair. There was little stuff like that, scene that were on a train or a bus that clearly just could be on the street. That’s producers thinking economically. There was a big chase sequence in the middle, and I don’t know if that was cut for budget or just to save the good stuff for the end. All in all, stuff was really added, if anything.

Is there anything that you thought they would never be able to do, but they actually did?

LIEBERMAN: The cameos, which you never would think you could do, but that are just so great. This is a movie that could maybe be shot on a smaller budget, if it had to be. The idea was strong enough. But they added all the stops, all the game references, all the Easter eggs, and built out the world. It looks like a big piece of candy. Everything they added was just awesome.

What video game Easter eggs are in the movie that people should look out for? Do you have any favorite ones?

LIEBERMAN: That’s a great question. There’s a little Pac-Man ghost in there. There’s so much. I’ve only watched the final film like three times so far, so there’s stuff that I haven’t even caught. I just love all the little nods to gamers, like the woman who can’t find her cats. There’s always that character in an open world game. There’s just so much.

What most impressed you about the look of Free City? What was it like to actually see it brought to life?

LIEBERMAN: I literally cried when I saw the rough cut of the movie, even with the effects half done. No movie can perfectly emulate a video game experience, but this movie gives gamers everything they want and lands the wish fulfillment of putting on a pair of glasses and seeing this world that’s been going on around you, that you’ve never seen, and it looks so sparkly and fun. I thought they did a great job.

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Image via Disney

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This film is really about original ideas beating IP and sequels, but then there’s the stuff at the end from the MCU and Star Wars. What was your reaction to that? Did you add those elements yourself, or did that get added later?

LIEBERMAN: Those got added after Disney bought Fox, a hundred percent. There’s still the big boss battle at the end. That was always there – the face-off with Antoine – it was just a little different. All of that corporate synergy with Disney just shows how much they embraced the film. I do think it’s funny that the Taika [Waititi] lines about original IP and sequels was also added very late in the game because it’s what we were experiencing. I definitely think that executives were like, “What’s it based on?” And we were like, “It’s based on a script.” And they were like, “Well, what’s the script based on?” They couldn’t understand that. So, we put that in as more of a joke, but people have definitely been locking into that, which is interesting. Really, this was always a movie about free will and the power of kindness and how you can change your world. This is a spec I wrote like in my home office and at coffee houses when I felt stuck in my life, and it has literally changed my life, which is just wild.

You also have the animated future Rumble coming out next year, and monster wrestling sounds incredible. What are you most excited about with that film?

LIEBERMAN: The monster wrestling. I’ve always loved giant monster movies and kaiju movies, and I’ve always wanted to do an animated film in that world. There was this graphic novel that had this hint of an idea where every town had their own monster, and we turned it into this giant monster wrestling competition. It has two of my favorite things in it. I can’t wait for that.

What are you currently working on now? Do you know what the next thing that you’ve written is, that will go into production, or are you figuring that out?

LIEBERMAN: I do have another spec script that has a director attached, that’s pretty close, called Meet the Machines, and that’s basically about a family robots trying to fit into the suburbs to go on a mission while they’re trying to pose as a normal family. And I’m working now on something that I sold to Paramount, with Kenya Barris producing, which is another Free Guy big idea. I won’t say much, but it’s in a world with aliens. It’s really cool and I’m very excited.

Ryan Reynolds and Lil Rel Howery in Free Guy
Image via 20th Century Studios

It sounds like you’re working in lots of different areas of the fantasy genre.

LIEBERMAN: Totally. I love heightened ideas. I’m a high concept writer. I just love big ideas with an ironic hook that are about something. If something has those three things, that’s my sweet spot.

I’m also fascinated by the fact that you’ve written a Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride movie for Disney. What was the interest in doing something like that? How different is it to have to figure out and write a movie about a theme park attraction?

LIEBERMAN: No matter what piece of IP it is, whether it’s something like Scooby-Doo that everybody’s heard of or Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, it’s about what the idea is. What’s the idea that’s gonna get me excited to see this movie, if I’ve never heard of this thing before? With Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, I actually had an overall deal with Disney, where I could just bring them things, and I pitched them this Fast and Furious idea with anthropomorphic animals and a human cop. I think it turned out pretty great and I think they’re still maybe figuring it out. Who knows? It might see the light of day.

You’ve worked on a number of projects for already existing properties, with The Addam’s Family, Scoob!, The Jetsons, Rin Tin Tin, Short Circuit and even Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, that are connected to other things. Is there something out there that exists, in some form, that you haven’t written yet, that you really want to write?

LIEBERMAN: That’s a great question. I would love to do something in a Dungeons and Dragons or World of Warcraft world, even those two properties. Legend of Zelda is another world I would love to see on the big screen. I could go on longer than you want about that. There are so many things. I love pop culture.

What’s it like, as a writer and a storyteller, to write in a world that has pre-existed?

LIEBERMAN: It’s very different. You definitely wanna make the best story possible and honor the story and the characters. Depending on how big the property is, you wanna give the fans what they want. You don’t want somebody who’s loved this thing all of their lives to hate you or go to the theater and be disappointed, but you also want it to be accessible to everybody. You want somebody who doesn’t have 50 posters for the thing on their wall to just walk in and enjoy it, and be surprised to enjoy it. The Watchmen TV show was great, and my wife loved it, even though she’d never heard of Watchmen. That’s the dance you have to play with those things. Free Guy was liberating because it’s about a lot of things that I love, but it’s not specifically about those things. It’s very freeing to be able to just tell the best story.

Short-Circuit

What appealed to you about doing a Short Circuit reboot, and did you take into consideration the things that have been considered problematic since that film was made?

LIEBERMAN: Yes. I loved the film growing up, obviously because of the robot. It was adorable. I was hired to write that, and there was already a director involved, so he had a vision. The version I wrote was about a robot and a kid. With a couple of years distance, I feel like it takes a little bit of the irony out of it. I don’t think we made a wink at those offensive things. We just started fresh with the idea of this adorable robot who’s also the most dangerous thing, with a kid. That’s really what was fun about it.

With Free Guy, is the ending that we see in the finished film always the ending that you had envisioned, or did it change?

LIEBERMAN: Yes, it did change. In the original script, he ends up with Millie. They maintain their relationship into whatever the sequel will be. But Ryan and Shawn felt that it needed that Ghost moment. Nobody could really rationalize a person having an extended stay as bit and bytes. We thought, “What’s the Ghost moment?” It was definitely tweaked from the first iteration of the movie. How does Guy end up, after saying goodbye to Millie? How do you wanna leave Guy? We knew that audiences would just wanna know that he’s gonna be okay and that he’s happy, and I think they nailed it.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Obviously, if audience demand is there, sequels could be possible. Is that something you’ve thought about? Have you talked about it? Do you have ideas for what could happen next?

LIEBERMAN: Yes, all the way. I’ve not been a part of any formal sequel discussion, but we talked a little bit about it on set, two years ago, and I have big ideas for it. I definitely see lots of fun, unexpected places the story can go and pairings of characters and things that could really be a lot of fun. I hope I get the chance to take a crack at it.

There are so many fun little thing in this that, especially now with something like Disney+, you could have a limited TV series about any number of things going on in this world.

LIEBERMAN: Totally. That’s what’s exciting about TV, for sure. You can have big ideas and get to play them out in a series, over seasons. That’s fun. I would love a Free Guy show.

I love movies that can create such a detailed world that there are so many little characters and things that you want to know more about because they could all have a story to tell.

LIEBERMAN: Totally. There were characters that we had to cut out, where it was the right decision to make to cut them out because they helped Guy out a little too much and he needed to figure things out on his own. But there are definitely quadrants and sectors of that world that definitely could be explored more.

Free Guy is now playing in theaters.