Fin: The Fall Guy’s box office doesn’t mean much

Plus: The return of Kathryn Bigelow, Shohei: The Show, the Brady roast, an actor comes out as straight, and more in this week’s notes column

The Fall Guy, which arrived in theaters last Friday, seemed like a movie that couldn’t miss. 

It starred Ryan Gosling, who’s on a big career roll after Barbie, his Oscars musical number, and a well-received turn on Saturday Night Live. It was a crowd-pleasing romp that didn’t take itself too seriously, with a winning romance between Gosling and Emily Blunt. The reviews were primarily positive. It seemed like a movie that would clean up and possibly even kick off a franchise. 

And then the movie came out and made just $27.7 million in its opening weekend, which was below expectations. This led to lots of hand-wringing, especially about the upcoming summer box office, since the post-strike release schedule is notably light on sure things. It also means the studio may have underestimated the residual affection for the 1980s The Fall Guy TV show.

This one has no “go woke, go broke” angle. However, the movie’s most considerable ideological stance — that stuntmen, as a profession, are underappreciated — is righteous, although it does not seem to have translated to box office success. 

The Fall Guy will have staying power and end up as one of those movies with a good reputation over time. Maybe it’ll even hang on through the coming weeks, given that lack of competition. And as always, let’s not be so brain-poisoned as to believe that a movie that underwhelmed at the box office should never have been made at all. 

I agree with Matt Singer at ScreenCrush: 

A consultant quoted in Variety’s piece characterized The Fall Guy’s opening weekend as “fair” and said it “is going to need a long run” in theaters to turn a profit. And maybe that’s what it will have; The Fall Guy is the sort of crowdpleaser that tends to hang around theaters for a while. (It got a very solid A- CinemaScore from paying customers last weekend.) I have no doubt that over time The Fall Guy will turn into one of those movies that everyone has seen and likes, and many people pretend they were fans of right from the start, even though they only caught it on streaming way after the fact.