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20th Century Fox has attached Ryan Reynolds to star in Free Guy, with Shawn Levy poised to direct the film. Berlanti Productions’ Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter are producing alongside Reynolds’ Maximum Effort, Levy’s 21 Laps, and Adam Kolbrenner. This will be part of the multi-year film deal that Berlanti signed with Fox, where Maximum Effort and 21 Laps also have deals.

Free Guy, acquired as a Matt Lieberman spec in 2016, is in the vein of The Truman Show, where a bank teller stuck in his routine discovers he’s a background character in a rather brutal open world, action-adventure video game and he is the only one capable of saving his world.

Mike Ireland is overseeing for Fox.

Coming off Deadpool 2, Reynolds next stars in the Michael Bay-directed action film 6 Underground for Netflix, lends the lead voice in Legendary’s Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, and he’s circling several other films including X Force at Fox, the Sam Raimi-directed Bermuda Triangle at Skydance and Clue, the Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick film based on the board game that was the first film set at Fox under Reynolds’ Maximum Effort overall deal.

Lieberman, meanwhile, has Christmas Chronicles coming out from Netflix, and he penned the latest version of MGM’s animated The Addams Family movie coming out next year.

WME reps Reynolds and Levy.

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EXCLUSIVE: Taika Waititi and Utkarsh Ambudkar have joined the cast of 20th Century Fox and 21 Laps Entertainment’s action comedy Free Guy from director Shawn Levy.

They join Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Joe Kerry and Lil Rel who already in the Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn-scripted pic about a bank teller who discovers that he’s actually a player inside a video game. Reynolds is producing through Maximum Effort and Levy through his 21 Laps Entertainment with Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter producing through Berlanti Productions. Adam Kolbrenner is also producing. George Dewy of Maximum Effort and Dan Levine of 21 Laps serve as EPs. Mike Ireland is overseeing the project for 20th Century Fox.

After reinvigorating Disney/Marvel’s Thor franchise with Thor: Ragnarok ($853.9M WW), Waititi directed, co-adapted and stars in Fox Searchlight’s upcoming WWII drama-comedy Jojo Rabbit. He’s also an episode in Disney+ streaming Star Wars series The Mandalorian, and will co-write and direct the new Apple series Time Bandits, which is an adaptation of the cult Terry Gilliam film. He’s also a director and EP on FX’s What We Do in the Shadows, the TV series take on his 2104 comedy vampire pic.

Ambudkar’s credits include Disney’s upcoming Mulan, the Sundance premiere Brittany Runs a Marathon, and the TV series Brockmire and The Mindy Project.

Waititi is repped by CAA, Gail Cowan Management, Dan Halsted of Manage-ment and Morris Yorn Barnes Levine Krintzman Rubenstein Kohner & Gellman. Ambudkar is repped by Gersh, 3 Arts, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman Wertheimer Mandelbaum Morris Bernstein Trattner & Klein.

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