SPOILER WARNING: This article contains minor spoilers for Free Guy, now in theaters.
Ryan Reynolds has a long-professed love for Mariah Carey's music, with that passion for the Canadian singer's work leading it to appear in his movies -- even including ones where that wasn't the original intent, like his new film Free Guy.
During a press conference for Free Guy attended by CBR, Director Shawn Levy and star Ryan Reynolds discussed how they decided to feature Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" at the heart of the entire film -- eventually leading it to become a prominent part of the advertising campaign for the movie as well.
In Free Guy, Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" ends up becoming something of an unofficial theme song for Guy and his world, as that world learns to grow outside of its original programming. But according to Director Shawn Levy, this wasn't the original choice for the film. "That was Ryan," Levy explained. "Ryan is kind of a maestro of the odd, random but inspired song idea. He is obsessive about it, and early on when we were working on the script, Ryan's like, 'You know what I think should be the anthem of this entire movie and marketing campaign?' And he suggested this song by Mariah."
"Little did we know that by the third act of the movie we'd have a cover of that song by our very own Jodie Comer in the movie," Levy said. Comer -- who plays Millie and her in-game avatar Molotov in the film -- laughed at that acknowledgment, noting that she "always forgets about that."
For Reynolds -- who previously featured a Mariah Carey song in Deadpool 2's James Bond-inspired "Ashes" credits sequence -- it was an obvious choice to include Carey in Free Guy as well: "In the earliest draft, the song was written in as The Outfield's 'Your Love.'" But despite that idea, Reynolds admitted, "It ended up not just fitting right. It's a great song, but [just wasn't] fitting right. But then Mariah Carey's 'Fantasy' just came, like a lightning bolt and just drove... it was like an engine for so much of the movie. It was really fantastic."
Directed by Shawn Levy from a script by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, Free Guy stars Ryan Reynolds as Guy, Jodie Comer as Milly, Joe Keery as Keys, Lil Rel Howery as Buddy, Utkarsh Ambudkar as Mouser and Taika Waititi as Antoine. The film arrives in theaters Aug. 13.
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