Joe Keery has shared which Stranger Things character he thinks would do well in the video game world of Free Guy. The sci-fi action comedy has been one of the few summer blockbusters of this year to release exclusively in theatres, albeit for a shortened 45-day window before it’s expected debut on the Disney+ service. Despite the box office inevitably being affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Free Guy has been one of Hollywood’s biggest successes this summer and is likely to be a blueprint for Disney’s distribution strategy moving forward.
Directed by Stranger Things producer and occasional director Shawn Levy, Free Guy follows Ryan Reynolds as Guy, a mild-mannered bank teller whose world is turned upside down when he realizes he is an NPC (non-player character) in an online open-world video game called Free City. As Free City’s servers are about to be wiped to make room for a sequel, Guy teams up with player Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer) to stop the city from being destroyed. Keery, best known for playing the reformed jock Steve Harrington in Stranger Things, has a major role in Free Guy as programmer Walter “Keys” McKey.
In a recent interview with Pinkvilla, Keery sparked ideas of a Free Guy and Stranger Things crossover by sharing how he thinks the characters of the Netflix sci-fi series would fare in Free City. For the most part, the actor wasn't particularly optimistic about their chances. Keery singled out Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) because “she’s got telekinetic powers,” but said it would be “tough” for the others, especially if they didn’t have any of the game's tools to help them. Read Keery's full quote below:
"That's a great question! Probably, not well. I mean, I think Eleven would probably do pretty well 'cause she's got telekinetic powers. But everyone else, I don't know. If they just were, if they didn't have any items or anything, then probably it would be tough. I wouldn't want any... I wouldn't want to live in Free City. There's no way.”
Free Guy is packed with celebrity cameos and Easter eggs, and given its close connection to Stranger Things with Levy at the helm, it may seem surprising that other actors from the series didn’t pop up. Ultimately, however, the director was the only familiar face for Keery during production. Free Guy marks Keery’s first turn in a major Hollywood blockbuster, a fact which he previously admitted made him nervous to work on the film, along with being surrounded by such a star-studded cast. That said, Keery is no stranger to action and comedy-based roles after working on Stranger Things, so Free Guy was not a wholly new experience for the actor.
While it's true that many of the Stranger Things characters spend a lot of time at the arcade, as kids in the 80s, they would probably be blown away by how advanced Free City is. That said, as Keery points out, Eleven’s powers would give her a big advantage in navigating the dangerous open-world of the game. With Disney interested in making Free Guy a franchise, a Stranger Things cameo or Easter egg isn’t off the cards in a potential sequel, especially if Keery and Levy are involved again. However, with season 4 of Stranger Things on the horizon, the characters will have more than enough to deal with in their own reality for the time being.
Source: Pinkvilla