Director Shawn Levy and actor/wise-ass extraordinaire Ryan Reynolds have become a bit of a magic pairing. First collaborating on last year’s original sci-fi hit, “Free Guy,” the two have been singing each other’s praises in interview after interview, all usually while talking up what was going to be an even better movie, their next original sci-fi collaboration entitled, “The Adam Project.”
The film follows a pilot from the future named Adam (Ryan Reynolds) who jumps back in time and teams up with his younger self (Walker Scobell) and his father (Mark Ruffalo) to save the world from a person who has used time travel for their own nefarious purposes. During a conversation on “The Discourse,” director Shawn Levy shared how the project came to be.
“We were in post-production on ‘Free Guy.’ [Ryan Reynolds and I] got along very quickly and effortlessly,” he explained. “We got along on set and in life. And we sent out word far and wide, like, ‘OK, send us more!’ We were looking for things to collaborate on, and while we were in post on ‘Free Guy,’ David Ellison told Ryan about this idea that they’d been developing for like eight years about a guy who goes back and meets his younger self and his parents who are the same age as he is currently. And Ryan immediately told me about it, and I had a sense that this was a chance to do something very different from ‘Free Guy,’ but something that could, like ‘Free Guy,’ be almost a trojan horse, right? You think you’re going to get a sci-fi time travel adventure, and you are, but you might also be surprised into an emotional experience.”
Inevitably, the topic of a potential sequel does come up, and director Shawn Levy was quick to deny any conversations about a second ‘Adam Project’ film between Ryan Reynolds and himself.
“We are developing several other original movies. It’s interesting because with ‘Free Guy,’ we always had a sense that, ‘Oh, this could go somewhere else.’ And we are developing a sequel to ‘Free Guy.’ With ‘Adam Project,’ we have been asked, ‘Hey, could you maybe?’ So far, we are disinclined. We feel like this story has a closure to it – redemption and a resolution to it – that maybe we don’t want to mess with.”
Shawn also acts as a producer and occasional director on the hit Netflix series “Stranger Things.” When the topic of teasing the next season came up, the director was obviously tight-lipped but had a little tease to offer.
“I will just say that Season four, part of the reason it’s taken so long is, of course, the pandemic, but part of it is also the ambition of the fourth season. It is so cinematically epic! And the complexity of pulling it off simply takes time. It is incredibly cinematic in scope without sacrificing these relationships and these character anchored storylines that have engaged audiences in such a passionate way.”
“The Adam Project” hits Netflix on Friday, March 11. You can listen to the full conversation below:
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