'The Fall Guy' Flops at Weekend Box Office
by EG
“The Fall Guy,” an action-comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, kicked off the summer movie season without much sizzle.
The film, backed by Universal and directed by David Leitch, fell just short of expectations with $28.5 million from 4,002 North American venues in its debut. Heading into the weekend, “The Fall Guy” was projected to earn at least $30 million to $40 million. The trouble is that the movie cost $140 million to produce, so it needs strong word of mouth and interest at the international box office to recoup its budget during its theatrical run. “The Fall Guy” opened to $25.4 million overseas, bringing its global total to $65.4 million.
“This is a fair opening for a big action-comedy,” says David A. Gross of movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “Action comedies are solid performers overseas, and with this cast, foreign business should be good. At [its] cost, ‘The Fall Guy’ is going to need a long run.”
There’s hope that “The Fall Guy” can stick around over the coming weeks… and that’s because Leitch’s prior film, 2022’s Brad Pitt-led assassin thriller “Bullet Train,” overcame similar box office odds. The $90 million-budgeted movie started slow with $30 million in August and legged out to $130 million domestically and $239 million globally.
Also, audiences and critics are digging the film, which landed an “A-” CinemaScore and 83% on Rotten Tomatoes. “The Fall Guy” sees Gosling as a former stuntman who tries to track down a missing movie star (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) so he can salvage a big studio movie, which is being directed by his ex-girlfriend (Blunt).
“We are incredibly proud of this film,” says Universal’s president of domestic distribution Jim Orr. “It’s an exciting, charming film that I have no doubt will have a robust run.”
Notably, this is the first time in over a decade that Marvel isn’t igniting the summer season so, naturally, comparisons are tough to the same weekend in 2023 when “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3″ started things off with $118 million. This marks the softest start to blockbuster season in roughly 15 years.