NYCC 2019: Ryan Reynolds and Taika Waititi Disavow Green Lantern at Fox Panel

During the 20th Century Fox panel this afternoon at New York Comic Con, the cast of the upcoming action-comedy Free Guy — including Ryan Reynolds and Taika Waititi — took aim at the 2011 Green Lantern movie starring…well…Ryan Reynolds and Taika Waititi. Really it should be no surprise that Reynolds is poking fun at Green Lantern, once one of the biggest films he had ever done. After all, the snarky celeb has done so pretty regularly since 2011, including memorably on-screen in Deadpool. The difference here is that the entire cast of Free Guy got in on the action this time.

The jokes came via a short video cut together, ostensibly to show off the chemistry of the cast. Structured as a pretty typical “what attracted you to this movie?” style roundtable where the cast talk to one another while sitting in director’s chairs, it wasn’t long before the Green Lantern jokes started flowing.

“I’m really most here for Taika,” Reynolds said in the video. “I’ve been a huge fan of his for a while, and it’s super cool to do a movie with him.”

“Yeah. Ditto for me as well. I’ve known about Ryan for a long time. We’ve always been trying to meet up or connect or work together, so to finally get that chance to be in the same thing together for the first time ever was actually super exciting.”

At that point in the video, co-star Jodie Comer interjected to ask whether they had been in something else together, and both Reynolds and Waititi denied it, saying that they just met.

Finally, actor Joe Keery interjected, “Green Lantern!” But Reynolds was undaunted, suggesting that his co-stars were thinking of either Fried Green Tomatoes or Green Hornet, with Waititi adding, “Neither of us is Seth Rogen.”

Finally, Comer and Keery held their ground as the camera moved to them for a moment. When the shot widened back out to get a response from Reynolds and Waititi, they were gone, leaving their chairs empty.

When it was first announced, Free Guy was reported as a story that centered on Reynolds as Guy, a video game character who discovered his game was about to be cancelled and led the charge to save the game (and therefore his world).

In fact, the story will see Reynolds playing a non-player character (NPC) in an open-world video game that IGN’s Terri Schwartz (who moderated the panel and had a cameo in the film) described as “Grand Theft Auto meets Fortnite.” Early in the film, Guy realizes that there is something strange about how often the bank he works at is robbed, and that realization leads to a revelation about the nature of his entire existence. The movie, as director Shawn Levy described it, is a bit like a superhero film, as Guy begins to learn what he can do and how powerful he can become by harnessing the rules of the game.

Free Guy will be in theaters in July of 2020.