Jeopardy’s Alex Trebek Confirmed for Ryan Reynolds’ Free Guy

While the film world is still in a state of flux due to the COVID-19 pandemic, movie fans are still occasionally getting looks at upcoming blockbusters. The latest arrived on Monday morning, when the second official trailer for Free Guy was released on social media. The trailer showcased what fans can expect from the genre-bending, Ryan Reynolds-led film — including a pretty endearing cameo. Midway through the trailer, as the world begins to question the emergence of “the blue shirt guy”, the film goes on to an in-universe episode of Jeopardy!, where host Alex Trebek asks a contestant a question about Reynolds’ character.

Fans have quickly embraced Trebek’s cameo in Free Guy, especially given Reynolds’ penchant for casting Canadian actors in his projects, and the Jeopardy! host’s recent ascension into a pop culture icon. The cameo – or at least, what we’ve seen of it thus far – also fits into the unconventional plot of the film in a pretty endearing way.

Free Guy will star Reynolds as Guy, a bank teller who discovers he is actually a background player in an open-world video game, decides to become the hero of his own story…one he rewrites himself. Now in a world where there are no limits, he is determined to be the guy who saves his world his way…before it is too late. The film also stars Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Taika Waititi.

“I always look at like, sports movies are good metaphors,” Reynolds told reporters during a recent virtual Free Guy press conference. ‘The greatest sports movies ever made are not actually about sports. Field of Dreams, I wouldn’t characterize that as a baseball story. They used baseball as a vehicle to tell a really beautiful story about a son and a father trying to connect. And I think that we’re doing the same thing. We’re using the video game world, the Free City world and video game culture, as a sort of a vehicle to tell this really beautiful and powerful human story.”

“I do think it’s the best movie making experience that I’ve ever had easily but also I think the best movie I’ve ever done,” Reynolds continued. “You know, it’s the most kind of pertinent to our times, in that sense. I mean, you know, where I feel Deadpool was like a movie that was pertinent to the comic book culture when it came out. This really to me speaks to a broader kind of spectrum of where we are in the world, and not only that, but how we are in the world. So, I think that’s one of the reasons I think it’s my favorite movie. But it’s also, yes, the experience certainly plays into that, but also this incredible cast.”

What do you think of Alex Trebek cameoing in Free Guy? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Free Guy is scheduled to hit theaters on December 11th.