The Adam Project: Ryan Reynolds calls film ‘very personal’, likens it to E.T

After delivering a fan-favourite hit in the form of Free Guy, filmmaker Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds are teaming up yet again to replicate their last film’s success with their next venture, The Adam Project. The upcoming science-fiction drama explores the concept of time travel and familial bonds and baggage, and Reynolds recently opened up about what the film means to him.

In a conversation with Variety, the Deadpool star likened his upcoming film with some famous adventure and sci-fi works of the 1980s, such as Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and even Richard Donner’s The Goonies. The actor talked about how they felt like ‘big wish fulfillment’ films, with their awe-inspiring concept and high stakes. He said such films felt deeply ‘personal’ for him because of it and through The Adam Project, it felt like they were reverting to the kind of filmmaking that existed during the '80s period.

Reynolds mentioned how the film sought to make audiences laugh, cry and then bring them back to smiles, saying that films that did that were the ones really worth seeing. He also added that after Free Guy, he and Levy were in search of another original idea similar to that, and called filming the upcoming movie a ‘special’ experience.

The film tells the story of Adam, a man from the future who travels to the past and teams up with his younger self to face up to his late father. In addition to Reynolds, the upcoming film also features Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Walker Scobell, Catherine Keener, and Zoe Saldana.

The Adam Project will be available to stream on Netflix from March 11, 2022.