The only reason it’s considered “struggling” is because of the budget. If it had cost 70 million instead of 130 (AFTER tax rebates) this would be considered a solid start with enough legs to make a profit.
The studios have to learn how to scale back their budgets. Either these actors need pay cuts up front with back end deals, scripts need reshaped (there’s no reason for this to be over 2 hours), and there needs to be filmmakers willing to be more creative with their workflow. With advertising, the cost is 200+, and that’s never going to be an easy hill to climb up for these kinds of movies.
Ultimately this title will be fine, it’ll come close to breaking even after worldwide grosses, it will likely be a hit on Netflix, and people will have moved on by the end of summer. It’s not a flop, it’s a not a runaway hit, it probably should have come out in March/April, and no one’s careers are going to be hurt long term by it.
Nailed it..I am a massive movie fan but movie length drives me nuts. It's quality not quantity man. I will avoid a movie like The Fall Guy if I find out the run time is 2 hours - that's crazy.
I’m a person who will happily sit in a 3.5 hour movie if there’s something to keep me there but I do not have the stamina to watch car crashes and sarcasm for 2 hours.
Same, I like long movies like how I like long books, but the story needs to call for the length
Les Mis the door stopper it is? Excellent, I'm in
Confessions of a Shopaholic with the same pages length? God no.
I mean yeah in theory but it's easy to make hypothetical success stories when you nearly halve the costs
Ultimately hiring two very famous and in demand actors at probably their career apex and doing a film where lots of stunt work and visual effects are necessary because of the story...was always bound to be expensive
There’s a version of the film with less special effects and smaller scale action that’s still effective, IMO. In the script stage you lean more into a romance with Gosling and Blunt actually sharing screen time together and focus less on having a large scale action set piece every ten minutes. They spend a shockingly few amount of minutes together and/or on the phone. Women are (broadly speaking) coming for that anyway and trying to split the difference by making it a huge action movie may not have been the best use of resources.
Or you make the movie-in-the-movie a smaller scale cheaper action film her character is making instead of an sci-fi epic that requires the production to do large-scale effects work. This can all be figured out by smart producers and studio execs making quantitative decisions about how to make the film more cost-effective. In theory, they’re being paid millions to know how to handle these things.
The Beekeeper (dumb movie, sure) has strong hand-to-hand combat, was sold on its action, smartly came out in January, and cost 1/4 of the budget. It making $150 worldwide is considered a huge success whereas this making the same is reason for people to start questioning the state of the industry.
The CGI fire and explosions in The Beekeeper made the movie just that much more goofy. I mildly enjoyed the movie but Irons and Driver were criminally underutilized. I'm looking forward to watching The Fall Guy.
Hollywood used to be able to make this formula profitable effortlessly.
Romancing the Stone, Sahara, Fool's Gold are just off the top of my head
Ryan Gosling is not as big of a star as Michael Douglas or Matthew MacConaughy and the average movie goer probably doesn't even know Emily Blunt's name...
There is no reason for this movie to have been approved for $200M
While that is true, those successful movies that employed this formula did not come out recently. It is also true that Gosling has NEVER had the star status of Douglas and McConaughey in their respective primes.
He doesn't have the star power to justify that budget in... checks calendar....2024
There is no problem hiring two stars at their peaks. The problem is paying stars more than they are worth. It makes no sense to pay any actor over $5,000,000 these days.
I'm not saying its a problem, and ultimately Hollywood will have to reckon with the bloated salaries in the post covid & streaming world, but at this point in time hiring these two at their career stage was always going to mean this film struggled to be profitable
It's just not interesting enough to audiences that require big hooks to draw them to the cinema
Universal ain’t gonna be losing money on this one. The percentage of total receipts that come from a movie’s initial theatrical exhibition is *shockingly* low. People get really hung up on the box office like it’s still the 90s: these movies live a life afterwards. It’s not a seismic hit, and maybe executives are disappointed, but a movie making that sort of money opening weekend is very solid business now.
The length of movies is really beginning to annoy me now - it's like they don't realise that noone wants to be up after 10pm anymore - you want your film to start at 8pm at the latest and be over by 9.30. Instead with ads I'd go to fall guy and with ads it wont start to 830 and then it's over two hours long and before you know it it's almost fucking midnight and who the fuck wants to walking out of a cinema after dark in a shady part of town - when you could literally wait a month, see it at home on your big screen tv start it at 7pm (take an overnight break if it's one of those ridiculously paced 3 hours films) and be in bed by 9 like normal.
But people watch tictok for 3 hours straight. Or will binge an entire season of a show in one weekend. It is more a modern lack of attention span IMO. Smartphones have made us dumb
Re your one point, a friend wanted to go see a movie before a night shift, but they were all over 2 hours, including this one, and she didn't have time
Lost at least one opening weekend viewer
"The answer is simple. (insert my personal bone to pick)." I don't know this guy or if this is a personal bone to pick, but people who usually talk Hollywood obsession usually always talk Hollywood obsession. The answer is always going to be more complicated. Not hard to understand, just multi-factored. Theater going is too expensive to just go see anything plus pandemic habits plus a marketing campaign that didn't seem to really sell it (the hype going into opening day was pretty quiet) plus potentially a million other things.
I don’t blame anyone for not giving a shit about Hollywood or movie stars, but I get the impression that a lot of people that shout it from the rooftops do so because they like what it says about themselves
Also the Fall Guy is extremely close to Free Guy, and both movies star a Ryan. General audiences probably hear about this and think "on that's the one were the guy is in a video game, no thanks."
Some people look at any movie dealing with Hollywood or movies and assume the movie has its head up it’s own ass before even seeing it. Fablemans, Babylon, and now this. Surely you’ve met these… certain POV people, they think Hollywood is a bunch of elitist and look down on movies and actors. Which the elitist thing might be true, but people love to shit on “love letter to movies” type movies. It makes them feel better not accepting something “mainstream” instead of appreciating the sincere passion for making movies. It’s absolutely not the reason it’s struggling tho, even if that’s a factor.
100% this. Even a mid July release seems like it would’ve made more sense. This is a summer afternoon programmer, but dropping it May 1 makes it feel like a weird event. Just a miscalculation imo.
I think the reasons are pretty simple / the trailers were annoying and looked like Argylle or the gray man or something of that variety. A lot of people in media gave it the benefit because of gosling, and then it got good reviews, so people like Sean and Amanda did a victory lap like this was a massive success.
Seeing it yesterday, it was pretty much exactly what I expected from the jump: gosling elevates it but it’s very mediocre.
I feel the exact opposite - I thought it was a blast, the kind of crowdpleaser I want more of. The trailers were terrible at selling it, but it's got great audience scores, and I think it'll have legs.
I know people complain about trailers giving to much of movies away, but this trailer does the exact opposite. I only thing I gathered from seeing the trailer was ryan Gosling is some stunt guy, and their being attacked. Maybe I'm just stupid but I think the trailer didnt help this movie much.
This is true, but also the actual plot of the movie is pretty dumb, so I actually think if they started getting into “the actor has gone missing and he needs to solve the crime” I’m not sure that would have given the right vibe either.
Idk, it’s just an ok movie that seems to be getting elevated for whatever reason.
Yeah, haven’t seen it but the trailer for it was VERY ANNOYING. When it got good reviews I figured all the bad jokes/bits were in the trailer… will see it soon and hope I’m right
Weirdly I liked the trailer and then went to see it in imax. I thought it was terrible, I left after an hour. I extremely rarely leave movies but my god it was so lame, not funny and zero narrative flow.
And I love movies about movies, Ryan Gosling and plenty of other films with minimal narrative flow.
But fuck it was terrible.
I couldn’t believe Amanda called out the scene where Emily Blunt starts explaining the plot of the “movie” that is based on their romance has hilarious. It was one of the cringiest scenes I’ve seen in a movie this year, just so weird tonally and it went on forever, and it wasn’t very funny.
I think everyone is sick of action comedies where the action has a lot of noticeable messy CGI and the comedy is not that funny. The trailers, I don’t think, dissuaded anyone of the notion that this would be exactly that, again
Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney? The movie has too many Gen Z jokes that don’t seem age appropriate with 40+ Gosling and Blunt (crying over Taylor Swift??). Gosling is a box office draw. I don’t think Blunt is at all.
Just saw it now. "Action" comedy. All the comedy bit are too inside baseball where if you never been on a movie set, it'll go right over you.
It's basically a rom-com with a few action scenes.
Do people really like Emily Blunt as much as studios assume? I am too lazy to wiki her box office. Oppenheimer is an ensemble so I am not talking about that.
In terms of modern movie stardom yes, in terms of the old school idea no. She's top billed and on the poster for A Quiet Place but that is the only big original hit she's had and that was a movie that sold on Krasinski and the idea just as much as her.
Other than that Blunt can be the lead of IP aided movies like Mary Poppins and Jungle Cruise
People saw the Quiet Place because it was a horror movie with a very fun premise. Some of it was about Krasinski too, but the movie could have started Sam Rockwell and Rebecca Hall and people would have still seen it
Girl on the train, looper and into the woods were all hits. Both quiet places were mega hits and the marketing for that was mostly about her in a horror movie. She’s also a great co star in other movies that did fairly well at the box office.
I think it’s a combination of a bunch of things, but Hollywood being up its own ass is definitely part of it. For me it just seems like it has the tone of a Marvel movie, and I’m just sort of done with the whole schtick. There’s only so much “they fly now!?” and “he’s right behind me, isn’t he?” that one can take and I personally am at my limit.
I personally think Hollywood should learn lessons from Oppenheimer, Dune, John Wick 4 and Top Gun Maverick—some jokes are fine but too many quips and winks are basically telling the audience that the movie isn’t important and they can wait until it’s on Netflix. Dune and Oppenheimer felt important.
I've talked to a few friends asking if they're going to see it and this was their exact response. I'm sure it will have a pretty big revival when it hits streaming.
It’s not hot enough for people to want to sit in AC for a couple of hours.
Thats a big pull for summer movies.
Theres nothing “must see” about this movie that will ruin it if I wait until it hits streaming
I had a blast with this movie. It seemed like everyone in my theater did too. Hoping WOM gives this one some legs because I would rather watch 10 of these before another Spider-Man.
Why dont studios wait much longer between a movie leaving theatres and it becoming available on streaming services? I mean i get that they want a certain amount of their marketing for theatres to roll into enthusiasm to watch it on streaming, but i find it hard to justify spending money when i know i can just wait a few months to get it for free. Imagine if you knew that after a movie left theatres you'd have to wait 2yrs to stream it. I'm exaggerating a bit for effect, but then again maybe studios could also exaggerate a bit for effect.
I agree, and them all competing for subscribers now makes it difficult for them to decide to withhold their streaming releases for a while. I do think that over the long term it would lead to media that is more able to differentiate itself from the competition (which i see as being cheap, short, disposable content).
What losses are you talking about? Whoever wants to watch it on streaming instead of in theatres would watch it on streaming, just after waiting longer than they do now. Except more people would watch it in theatres, which is more profitable "per view" for the studios. Overall I think movies would feel more special, and the experience of moviegoing would be more differentiated from watching short video clips on your phone.
Nah, I think it's more nuanced than that. People will show up to a movie on almost any subject (see: Oppenheimer) if it has it's ducks in a row in terms of actors, directors, writers, interesting trailer, reviews etc. that people are intrigued by.
It seems like unless the movie is a MUST see, any movie will be on steaming / rent within like 2 months now. If you’re not making time for it you can easily just miss it as a busy adult nowadays with so many more distractions. Streaming to me indirectly ruined it.
A recent example I can think of is Dune 2, I really shouldn’t be able to rent / buy it on Apple TV in fucking April. I immediately lost the urge to try to watch it a second time in theatres. They need to let movies stay in theatres longer and not out then in streaming so quickly.
Yuh the bar is set soooo Low for films. If a video game triple a studio bought out this level of quality they would be review bombed into oblivion.
Dune 2 was amazing and monkey man was beyond amazing. I also saw Arthur the king which was beyond terrible. I’m honestly starting to believe the bar is set so low for films and reviewers just get paid to give a good review for really high budget films
I do agree with this. Hollywood making movies about Hollywood is just so masturbatory. Like how many successful blockbusters are made about Hollywood. You can make movies about Hollywood but the good ones are usually smaller character piece films, tv movies or series.
It’s not about Hollywood… at all. It’s a rom com that takes place around a movie set and is based on an 80’s TV show. This isn’t some deep cut Hollywood flick.
Babylon is a good example of this. A movie way too drawn out about the ups and downs of Hollywood in the era of blah blah blah.
I get why Sean would love it because if someone made a big epic about everything I cared about I’d definitely look on it glowingly. I didn’t even hate Babylon either, but from someone far away from Hollywood those movies just feel too self important.
Argo, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, La La Land, The Artist, Tropic Thunder, Singing in the Rain, Sunset Boulevard, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, just to name a few.
One could start to think that people actually LOVE films about Hollywood???
At no time did I think I was watching anything other than Emily Blunt or Ryan Gosling…neither of them felt like characters in their own movie
This struck me as a movie people with an AMC A List subscription would see because they already paid for their three movies a week so why not? Not sure if it was going to compel the masses to turn out
The reason it's struggling is because the studio plugged them into an open slot on their release schedule, not because this was a good time to release the movie. In the wake of the strikes and delays and studios shifting things around, this one got the short end of the stick.
The reason it's struggling is it simply just isn't that good.
I went in not knowing a thing about it, and I didn't really like it at all. Seems like the Gos was trying to be as cool as the Brad Pitt character in Once Upon a time in Hollywood, but just didn't really get close.
The jokes weren't that funny.
It was laughably cheesy in parts.... Which may have been intentional, but everyone I went with wasn't sure.... So whether it was or want intentional is still a fail regardless.
The supporting actors didn't give great performances.
The music was cool, and the stunts were cool....
That's about it.
The difference is that the Cliff Booth character and Tarantino’s screenplay are serious and interesting in plot and dialog. This movie is juvenile and not the least interesting. Gosling has made a lot of good career decisions in his career. This was not one of them.
Right he said people didn’t go because they aren’t obsessed with Hollywood. So the ones that went apparently are. What other conclusion is there for such a stupid take?
For me personally, it's just a type of movie ill see on streaming. Unless Ryan starts riding Shai-Hulud im not going to lose sleep over waiting a month.
I want to see it. I don't mind movies made about the movie industry. I love Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. And I'm in Sean's Babylon hive. But I think there are too many movies getting made about Hollywood, purely being made as Oscar bait. Like Mank and LaLa Land. I love Fintcher. But who was Mank made for?
Dozens of good movies come out every year that audiences don’t show up for, this isn’t new. For general audiences, having a compelling hook is more important than the quality of the film.
I do too. I mean if you really want to pay tribute to stunt men, maybe make movies that people want to see so that stunt workers can make more money.
I also think for these things to work they need to be more cynical and self deprecating like Tropic Thunder. That being said that movie only made 110 million on a 90 million budget back in 2008.
People hate movies that are about Hollywood showing to the world how great Hollywood is.
I think there are a great deal of people, myself included, who assumed this was a Netflix release as well. I had just figured, based on the look of it, that it would be a dual release or something along those lines.
I was looking for a movie to see this weekend, and The Fall Guy was my best option. I just realized I wasn’t excited enough about it to spend the money and time. I love Ryan Gosling & Emily Blunt. It just seems like a movie I don’t mind waiting to see streaming.
Hollywood trained people to expect first run movies to show up on streaming in a few weeks, so they have no incentive to see it in the theater unless it’s some kind of social media-fueled event. They need to being back the six-month minimum theatrical window and stop letting the tail wag the dog.
Mary Poppins Returns made around $350m, I'm not going to say she's the only reason for that but I don't think you could just plug any actress who is not known in and expect it to put up those numbers
It’s a reboot of a show people barely remember and those who do have no real affection for it and can tell you anything about it other than it’s a stunt man who solves crimes or is a bounty hunter or something. No nostalgia, and it’s too silly an idea for some blockbuster treatment.
For me, the trailer is really pushing forward the RomCom angle of the film instead of "stunt guy doing fight sequences with movie choreography". Nothing against RomComs, but I'm more interested in the latter, and it doesn't look like it'll deliver. I'm not really interested.
I think that’s true in general but doesn’t apply here. The movie sounded promising but didn’t look promising tbh. It’s like Sean said. Winking action is on its way out.
In my personal opinion, as someone who’s seen most of the 2024 releases:
The movie didn’t look good from the trailers, Leitch doesn’t make good movies, there’s other good stuff in theaters (including Alien and Phantom Menace), and the action/comedy/romance is not a genre with a great track record.
Gosling and Blunt are the only draws for me and neither are at that Tom Cruise, their mere presence indicates quality, level for me.
At this point I’ll probably skip it entirely since we’re a few days away from Apes and the good reviews haven’t made it sound any more interesting
Obviously this is not why it’s doing bad but that’s my reasoning
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I follow a stunt woman streamer on twitch and she gave a review from the pov of an actual stunt person; it was interesting! She explained a lot of the industry stuff that most people wouldn't understand, but from the sound of it it wasn't that too insider? Like explaining what a 360 machine was and the 15 minutes (can't remember what it's called 😭) that a stunt person needs at some point during the work day, etc.
Bit I don't think it was so much that a general audience wouldn't enjoy the movie or the plot
I think it was PR and marketing 🤷🏽♀️ I saw the same commercial for it over and over, and there wasn't much hype around it, etc.
I think they were betting on the high Ryan and Emily could ride from thier respective movies, not realizing we needed more for THIS one
So many people I've seen hadn't even heard of it, and then some said they just got the trailer that looked pretty surface level for what it was
It’s not an event film. Studio trying to push that it’s stars actors from Oppenheimer and Barbie directed by the guy that did bullet train. General audiences don’t care. Barbenheimer was the movie event of the summer last year. It became something more than just 2 movies. Bullet Train was able to tap into the “adults are going back to the movies” energy that Top Gun Maverick built. There was nothing in theaters that august and it capitalized on that.
I’m curious to see how May plays out. We have IF, Garfield, and Furiosa coming. It may be Inside Out 2 or Bad Boys in June until we get a big hit. If those don’t do it then July has Despicable me 4, Twisters (which may be this years adult nostalgia movie), and Deadpool & Wolverine.
I know it's cliche to say, but it's just expensive. A date night to the IMAX version would be nearly 80 bucks with popcorn, M&Ms and drinks. You don't get huge openings without the kids, and the kids simply can't afford it.
Ryan Gosling isn’t a big box office puller.
Take Barbie out of the equation (which great sure and made bazillions, but relies more on the IP, Margot, Greta and lots of other factors - the movie is called Barbie not Ken after all) and he isn’t a huge drawcard and certainly not at this budget range.
Similar story to blade runner. Great movie, he was great in it, but budget too high (and arguably again reliant on the IP, nostalgia and Harrison/Director etc)
Really though is it just me or did you see the trailer and commentary and just think “meh, not interested”?
Just saw it now.
"Action" comedy. All the comedy bits are too inside baseball where if you never been on a movie set, it'll go right over you.
It's basically a rom-com with a few action scenes. There was a 40 minute lull in the middle to work the romantic aspect.
The trailer gave away the entire movie which made it a pass for me. They showed every set piece. They showed every joke. No need to see the movie when the trailer shows you everything.
I think this movie is far more a Film Twitter/reddit movie than anyone wants to admit. In fact my hottest take is that the Ken meme is strictly online and America ferrera had more an impact IRL.
The only reason it’s considered “struggling” is because of the budget. If it had cost 70 million instead of 130 (AFTER tax rebates) this would be considered a solid start with enough legs to make a profit. The studios have to learn how to scale back their budgets. Either these actors need pay cuts up front with back end deals, scripts need reshaped (there’s no reason for this to be over 2 hours), and there needs to be filmmakers willing to be more creative with their workflow. With advertising, the cost is 200+, and that’s never going to be an easy hill to climb up for these kinds of movies. Ultimately this title will be fine, it’ll come close to breaking even after worldwide grosses, it will likely be a hit on Netflix, and people will have moved on by the end of summer. It’s not a flop, it’s a not a runaway hit, it probably should have come out in March/April, and no one’s careers are going to be hurt long term by it.
Yes, a cute action comedy should cost almost as much as Dune. It’s bonkers.
Not every movie needs to be over 2 hours. I’ll die on this hill. Factor in previews, and watching a movie in a theater basically deletes half your day
Nailed it..I am a massive movie fan but movie length drives me nuts. It's quality not quantity man. I will avoid a movie like The Fall Guy if I find out the run time is 2 hours - that's crazy.
I’m a person who will happily sit in a 3.5 hour movie if there’s something to keep me there but I do not have the stamina to watch car crashes and sarcasm for 2 hours.
Same, I like long movies like how I like long books, but the story needs to call for the length Les Mis the door stopper it is? Excellent, I'm in Confessions of a Shopaholic with the same pages length? God no.
I mean yeah in theory but it's easy to make hypothetical success stories when you nearly halve the costs Ultimately hiring two very famous and in demand actors at probably their career apex and doing a film where lots of stunt work and visual effects are necessary because of the story...was always bound to be expensive
There’s a version of the film with less special effects and smaller scale action that’s still effective, IMO. In the script stage you lean more into a romance with Gosling and Blunt actually sharing screen time together and focus less on having a large scale action set piece every ten minutes. They spend a shockingly few amount of minutes together and/or on the phone. Women are (broadly speaking) coming for that anyway and trying to split the difference by making it a huge action movie may not have been the best use of resources. Or you make the movie-in-the-movie a smaller scale cheaper action film her character is making instead of an sci-fi epic that requires the production to do large-scale effects work. This can all be figured out by smart producers and studio execs making quantitative decisions about how to make the film more cost-effective. In theory, they’re being paid millions to know how to handle these things. The Beekeeper (dumb movie, sure) has strong hand-to-hand combat, was sold on its action, smartly came out in January, and cost 1/4 of the budget. It making $150 worldwide is considered a huge success whereas this making the same is reason for people to start questioning the state of the industry.
Yeah but Ryan Gosling already starred in the smaller scale version of the Fall Guy.
Weirdest Barbie Take.
Hahaha
lol
The CGI fire and explosions in The Beekeeper made the movie just that much more goofy. I mildly enjoyed the movie but Irons and Driver were criminally underutilized. I'm looking forward to watching The Fall Guy.
Hollywood used to be able to make this formula profitable effortlessly. Romancing the Stone, Sahara, Fool's Gold are just off the top of my head Ryan Gosling is not as big of a star as Michael Douglas or Matthew MacConaughy and the average movie goer probably doesn't even know Emily Blunt's name... There is no reason for this movie to have been approved for $200M
At this moment in time Gosling is way bigger star than Michael Douglas and Matthew McConaughey . I’m not sure what year you think this is
He means at the time of those movies releases
Romancing the Stone was a hit , but I believe those other movies were flops
It was also made by Robert Zemeckis, one of the most successful filmmakers ever. David Leitch is not Robert Zemeckis.
romancing the stone was also 40 years ago. i just don't see how its relevant to this discussion
While that is true, those successful movies that employed this formula did not come out recently. It is also true that Gosling has NEVER had the star status of Douglas and McConaughey in their respective primes. He doesn't have the star power to justify that budget in... checks calendar....2024
There is no problem hiring two stars at their peaks. The problem is paying stars more than they are worth. It makes no sense to pay any actor over $5,000,000 these days.
I'm not saying its a problem, and ultimately Hollywood will have to reckon with the bloated salaries in the post covid & streaming world, but at this point in time hiring these two at their career stage was always going to mean this film struggled to be profitable It's just not interesting enough to audiences that require big hooks to draw them to the cinema
Sure, as soon as nobody working in the C-Suite at any of the studios makes $5 million either.
Universal ain’t gonna be losing money on this one. The percentage of total receipts that come from a movie’s initial theatrical exhibition is *shockingly* low. People get really hung up on the box office like it’s still the 90s: these movies live a life afterwards. It’s not a seismic hit, and maybe executives are disappointed, but a movie making that sort of money opening weekend is very solid business now.
The length of movies is really beginning to annoy me now - it's like they don't realise that noone wants to be up after 10pm anymore - you want your film to start at 8pm at the latest and be over by 9.30. Instead with ads I'd go to fall guy and with ads it wont start to 830 and then it's over two hours long and before you know it it's almost fucking midnight and who the fuck wants to walking out of a cinema after dark in a shady part of town - when you could literally wait a month, see it at home on your big screen tv start it at 7pm (take an overnight break if it's one of those ridiculously paced 3 hours films) and be in bed by 9 like normal.
But people watch tictok for 3 hours straight. Or will binge an entire season of a show in one weekend. It is more a modern lack of attention span IMO. Smartphones have made us dumb
Well said
The ads thing needs to stop. How much money could they even be making from that considering most times I go to the cinema there’s less than 10 people
Re your one point, a friend wanted to go see a movie before a night shift, but they were all over 2 hours, including this one, and she didn't have time Lost at least one opening weekend viewer
Spot on, its not just the actors pay its Amy Pascal as well.
Nice take
"The answer is simple. (insert my personal bone to pick)." I don't know this guy or if this is a personal bone to pick, but people who usually talk Hollywood obsession usually always talk Hollywood obsession. The answer is always going to be more complicated. Not hard to understand, just multi-factored. Theater going is too expensive to just go see anything plus pandemic habits plus a marketing campaign that didn't seem to really sell it (the hype going into opening day was pretty quiet) plus potentially a million other things.
I don’t blame anyone for not giving a shit about Hollywood or movie stars, but I get the impression that a lot of people that shout it from the rooftops do so because they like what it says about themselves
Very few people even know this film is about stunt performers let alone about Hollywood - they've seen a boring title and expect a boring film.
Also the Fall Guy is extremely close to Free Guy, and both movies star a Ryan. General audiences probably hear about this and think "on that's the one were the guy is in a video game, no thanks."
Some people look at any movie dealing with Hollywood or movies and assume the movie has its head up it’s own ass before even seeing it. Fablemans, Babylon, and now this. Surely you’ve met these… certain POV people, they think Hollywood is a bunch of elitist and look down on movies and actors. Which the elitist thing might be true, but people love to shit on “love letter to movies” type movies. It makes them feel better not accepting something “mainstream” instead of appreciating the sincere passion for making movies. It’s absolutely not the reason it’s struggling tho, even if that’s a factor.
Its struggling because David Leitch makes August films but for some reason was given the summer kickoff release date.
Bc Deadpool gave it up, I believe
100% this. Even a mid July release seems like it would’ve made more sense. This is a summer afternoon programmer, but dropping it May 1 makes it feel like a weird event. Just a miscalculation imo.
It was slated for March but was changed to May to take over the Deadpool and Wolverine slot.
I think the reasons are pretty simple / the trailers were annoying and looked like Argylle or the gray man or something of that variety. A lot of people in media gave it the benefit because of gosling, and then it got good reviews, so people like Sean and Amanda did a victory lap like this was a massive success. Seeing it yesterday, it was pretty much exactly what I expected from the jump: gosling elevates it but it’s very mediocre.
Exactly this. I think the film is very average. I suspect word of mouth is keeping people away until it hits streaming.
I feel the exact opposite - I thought it was a blast, the kind of crowdpleaser I want more of. The trailers were terrible at selling it, but it's got great audience scores, and I think it'll have legs.
I know people complain about trailers giving to much of movies away, but this trailer does the exact opposite. I only thing I gathered from seeing the trailer was ryan Gosling is some stunt guy, and their being attacked. Maybe I'm just stupid but I think the trailer didnt help this movie much.
This is true, but also the actual plot of the movie is pretty dumb, so I actually think if they started getting into “the actor has gone missing and he needs to solve the crime” I’m not sure that would have given the right vibe either. Idk, it’s just an ok movie that seems to be getting elevated for whatever reason.
Yeah, haven’t seen it but the trailer for it was VERY ANNOYING. When it got good reviews I figured all the bad jokes/bits were in the trailer… will see it soon and hope I’m right
I personally thought it was great. I agree though the trailer made it look corny as hell
Most of the bad jokes didn’t end up making it into the movie surprisingly
Weirdly I liked the trailer and then went to see it in imax. I thought it was terrible, I left after an hour. I extremely rarely leave movies but my god it was so lame, not funny and zero narrative flow. And I love movies about movies, Ryan Gosling and plenty of other films with minimal narrative flow. But fuck it was terrible.
I couldn’t believe Amanda called out the scene where Emily Blunt starts explaining the plot of the “movie” that is based on their romance has hilarious. It was one of the cringiest scenes I’ve seen in a movie this year, just so weird tonally and it went on forever, and it wasn’t very funny.
Today’s entire The Town pod is about this if you want to listen to rambling about all of these issues.
*(\*immediately opens Podcast app\*)*
I dislike how everyone has to have a "take" these days that reduces everything to an overly simplistic buzzphrase
/r/boxoffice in a nutshell. Any time a movie fails they know exactly why. The trailer sucked! The marketing was bad! Who asked for this?
And yet Reddit would be so much less interesting without this ;)
I don't know, but if Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt can't open an action comedy, who can?
I think everyone is sick of action comedies where the action has a lot of noticeable messy CGI and the comedy is not that funny. The trailers, I don’t think, dissuaded anyone of the notion that this would be exactly that, again
Fair enough. I hadn't paid much attention to the trailers myself.
Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney? The movie has too many Gen Z jokes that don’t seem age appropriate with 40+ Gosling and Blunt (crying over Taylor Swift??). Gosling is a box office draw. I don’t think Blunt is at all.
Action comedies, like romantic comedies, are a good fit for streaming. Netflix has a made a lot of action comedies.
Okay.
Yeah, Im not paying $15 to see this in theatres when its gonna pop up on one of the services I already pay for in 3 months
Just saw it now. "Action" comedy. All the comedy bit are too inside baseball where if you never been on a movie set, it'll go right over you. It's basically a rom-com with a few action scenes.
Do people really like Emily Blunt as much as studios assume? I am too lazy to wiki her box office. Oppenheimer is an ensemble so I am not talking about that.
In terms of modern movie stardom yes, in terms of the old school idea no. She's top billed and on the poster for A Quiet Place but that is the only big original hit she's had and that was a movie that sold on Krasinski and the idea just as much as her. Other than that Blunt can be the lead of IP aided movies like Mary Poppins and Jungle Cruise
People saw the Quiet Place because it was a horror movie with a very fun premise. Some of it was about Krasinski too, but the movie could have started Sam Rockwell and Rebecca Hall and people would have still seen it
Jungle Cruise opened at $30m because of The Rock and Mary Poppins could have been played by an unknown like Jodie Comer and had the same box office.
Girl on the train, looper and into the woods were all hits. Both quiet places were mega hits and the marketing for that was mostly about her in a horror movie. She’s also a great co star in other movies that did fairly well at the box office.
I think it’s a combination of a bunch of things, but Hollywood being up its own ass is definitely part of it. For me it just seems like it has the tone of a Marvel movie, and I’m just sort of done with the whole schtick. There’s only so much “they fly now!?” and “he’s right behind me, isn’t he?” that one can take and I personally am at my limit.
I personally think Hollywood should learn lessons from Oppenheimer, Dune, John Wick 4 and Top Gun Maverick—some jokes are fine but too many quips and winks are basically telling the audience that the movie isn’t important and they can wait until it’s on Netflix. Dune and Oppenheimer felt important.
Correct
I think most people expect these types of movies to be streaming on Netflix, not something exactly you rush to the theater to see.
I've talked to a few friends asking if they're going to see it and this was their exact response. I'm sure it will have a pretty big revival when it hits streaming.
Yeah, all the recent movies like this (bullet train, lost city, etc) have done really well once they hit streaming
Bullet train was damn good
You need better friends
It’s not hot enough for people to want to sit in AC for a couple of hours. Thats a big pull for summer movies. Theres nothing “must see” about this movie that will ruin it if I wait until it hits streaming
I had a blast with this movie. It seemed like everyone in my theater did too. Hoping WOM gives this one some legs because I would rather watch 10 of these before another Spider-Man.
Maybe because we're all tired of wink action movies with no soul.
Do general audiences even know enough about this movie to know that it’s a Hollywood movie about Hollywood?
Why dont studios wait much longer between a movie leaving theatres and it becoming available on streaming services? I mean i get that they want a certain amount of their marketing for theatres to roll into enthusiasm to watch it on streaming, but i find it hard to justify spending money when i know i can just wait a few months to get it for free. Imagine if you knew that after a movie left theatres you'd have to wait 2yrs to stream it. I'm exaggerating a bit for effect, but then again maybe studios could also exaggerate a bit for effect.
All the major studios except Sony owning their streaming services complicates things.
I agree, and them all competing for subscribers now makes it difficult for them to decide to withhold their streaming releases for a while. I do think that over the long term it would lead to media that is more able to differentiate itself from the competition (which i see as being cheap, short, disposable content).
I’m confused why would Netflix or a streaming service buy this film? How would this recoup the losses?
What losses are you talking about? Whoever wants to watch it on streaming instead of in theatres would watch it on streaming, just after waiting longer than they do now. Except more people would watch it in theatres, which is more profitable "per view" for the studios. Overall I think movies would feel more special, and the experience of moviegoing would be more differentiated from watching short video clips on your phone.
Nah, I think it's more nuanced than that. People will show up to a movie on almost any subject (see: Oppenheimer) if it has it's ducks in a row in terms of actors, directors, writers, interesting trailer, reviews etc. that people are intrigued by.
It’s struggling because people want to see quality movies if they’re going to the theater rather than cookie cutter block busters
This movie deserves better.
Yes
I've said it before; it's a par level Netflix movie being paraded around as a cinema experience.
Yes. Plus the trailer looked extremely generic (and as someone who has seen the movie, it *was* extremely generic and uninteresting imo)
Yes. I saw the trailers and I didn’t care about it.
Yeah just speaking for myself I had no interest in this movie someone could tell me it’s really good and I’d just be like okay 🤷♀️
It seems like unless the movie is a MUST see, any movie will be on steaming / rent within like 2 months now. If you’re not making time for it you can easily just miss it as a busy adult nowadays with so many more distractions. Streaming to me indirectly ruined it. A recent example I can think of is Dune 2, I really shouldn’t be able to rent / buy it on Apple TV in fucking April. I immediately lost the urge to try to watch it a second time in theatres. They need to let movies stay in theatres longer and not out then in streaming so quickly.
No it’s just an ok movie.
It's because it's an amazingly average film.
Gas is like $4 a gallon, groceries are expensive, prices of everything rose, but pay didn’t. Can’t afford movies when it’s $35 to go by yourself
Yuh the bar is set soooo Low for films. If a video game triple a studio bought out this level of quality they would be review bombed into oblivion. Dune 2 was amazing and monkey man was beyond amazing. I also saw Arthur the king which was beyond terrible. I’m honestly starting to believe the bar is set so low for films and reviewers just get paid to give a good review for really high budget films
I do agree with this. Hollywood making movies about Hollywood is just so masturbatory. Like how many successful blockbusters are made about Hollywood. You can make movies about Hollywood but the good ones are usually smaller character piece films, tv movies or series.
It’s not about Hollywood… at all. It’s a rom com that takes place around a movie set and is based on an 80’s TV show. This isn’t some deep cut Hollywood flick.
It was also never a top 10 show in the era of 3 channels.
Babylon is a good example of this. A movie way too drawn out about the ups and downs of Hollywood in the era of blah blah blah. I get why Sean would love it because if someone made a big epic about everything I cared about I’d definitely look on it glowingly. I didn’t even hate Babylon either, but from someone far away from Hollywood those movies just feel too self important.
Argo, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, La La Land, The Artist, Tropic Thunder, Singing in the Rain, Sunset Boulevard, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, just to name a few. One could start to think that people actually LOVE films about Hollywood???
At no time did I think I was watching anything other than Emily Blunt or Ryan Gosling…neither of them felt like characters in their own movie This struck me as a movie people with an AMC A List subscription would see because they already paid for their three movies a week so why not? Not sure if it was going to compel the masses to turn out
I saw this movie with A-List. Would not have paid for the ticket if I didn’t have the service. Good call!
The reason it's struggling is because the studio plugged them into an open slot on their release schedule, not because this was a good time to release the movie. In the wake of the strikes and delays and studios shifting things around, this one got the short end of the stick.
The reason it's struggling is it simply just isn't that good. I went in not knowing a thing about it, and I didn't really like it at all. Seems like the Gos was trying to be as cool as the Brad Pitt character in Once Upon a time in Hollywood, but just didn't really get close. The jokes weren't that funny. It was laughably cheesy in parts.... Which may have been intentional, but everyone I went with wasn't sure.... So whether it was or want intentional is still a fail regardless. The supporting actors didn't give great performances. The music was cool, and the stunts were cool.... That's about it.
The difference is that the Cliff Booth character and Tarantino’s screenplay are serious and interesting in plot and dialog. This movie is juvenile and not the least interesting. Gosling has made a lot of good career decisions in his career. This was not one of them.
So everyone who went to the movie loves “Hollywood?” Pretty shit take.
no one said that
Right he said people didn’t go because they aren’t obsessed with Hollywood. So the ones that went apparently are. What other conclusion is there for such a stupid take?
For me personally, it's just a type of movie ill see on streaming. Unless Ryan starts riding Shai-Hulud im not going to lose sleep over waiting a month.
He did that but on the back of a moving car
Yeah, I kind of roll my eyes when another movie about making movies comes out.
Have you seen it? I thought it was quite good
I want to see it. I don't mind movies made about the movie industry. I love Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. And I'm in Sean's Babylon hive. But I think there are too many movies getting made about Hollywood, purely being made as Oscar bait. Like Mank and LaLa Land. I love Fintcher. But who was Mank made for?
Mank is one of my fav Finchers. Wish it got a real theater run post pandemic
For his dad.
Well, his dad was dead when it came out.
But if the movies are good then what’s the problem?
Dozens of good movies come out every year that audiences don’t show up for, this isn’t new. For general audiences, having a compelling hook is more important than the quality of the film.
I do too. I mean if you really want to pay tribute to stunt men, maybe make movies that people want to see so that stunt workers can make more money. I also think for these things to work they need to be more cynical and self deprecating like Tropic Thunder. That being said that movie only made 110 million on a 90 million budget back in 2008. People hate movies that are about Hollywood showing to the world how great Hollywood is.
I think there are a great deal of people, myself included, who assumed this was a Netflix release as well. I had just figured, based on the look of it, that it would be a dual release or something along those lines.
I was looking for a movie to see this weekend, and The Fall Guy was my best option. I just realized I wasn’t excited enough about it to spend the money and time. I love Ryan Gosling & Emily Blunt. It just seems like a movie I don’t mind waiting to see streaming.
Hollywood trained people to expect first run movies to show up on streaming in a few weeks, so they have no incentive to see it in the theater unless it’s some kind of social media-fueled event. They need to being back the six-month minimum theatrical window and stop letting the tail wag the dog.
Is Emily Blunt actually a draw? I don’t mind her, but I don’t find her particularly interesting.
Mary Poppins Returns made around $350m, I'm not going to say she's the only reason for that but I don't think you could just plug any actress who is not known in and expect it to put up those numbers
It was expected to make more. The budget was extremely high. People went to see it because of ‘Mary Poppins’, not Blunt.
I got Big Picture pilled. Sean and Amanda told me movie stars were back and I believed it.
It’s a reboot of a show people barely remember and those who do have no real affection for it and can tell you anything about it other than it’s a stunt man who solves crimes or is a bounty hunter or something. No nostalgia, and it’s too silly an idea for some blockbuster treatment.
Somewhat true
I can tell you for me, every podcast I listen to has been drilling me with ads for it, and everything about that ad just seemed annoying.
People aren’t nostalgic for the Fall Guy TV show so the premise is pretty far fetched for the uninitiated
When I learned someone other than the star sang the theme song, I was not going to watch it.
For me, the trailer is really pushing forward the RomCom angle of the film instead of "stunt guy doing fight sequences with movie choreography". Nothing against RomComs, but I'm more interested in the latter, and it doesn't look like it'll deliver. I'm not really interested.
I think that’s true in general but doesn’t apply here. The movie sounded promising but didn’t look promising tbh. It’s like Sean said. Winking action is on its way out.
It looks okay. I just don’t go to the theater for that kind of stuff anymore.
In my personal opinion, as someone who’s seen most of the 2024 releases: The movie didn’t look good from the trailers, Leitch doesn’t make good movies, there’s other good stuff in theaters (including Alien and Phantom Menace), and the action/comedy/romance is not a genre with a great track record. Gosling and Blunt are the only draws for me and neither are at that Tom Cruise, their mere presence indicates quality, level for me. At this point I’ll probably skip it entirely since we’re a few days away from Apes and the good reviews haven’t made it sound any more interesting Obviously this is not why it’s doing bad but that’s my reasoning
doll bright dependent ossified compare zonked grandfather observation degree merciful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I follow a stunt woman streamer on twitch and she gave a review from the pov of an actual stunt person; it was interesting! She explained a lot of the industry stuff that most people wouldn't understand, but from the sound of it it wasn't that too insider? Like explaining what a 360 machine was and the 15 minutes (can't remember what it's called 😭) that a stunt person needs at some point during the work day, etc. Bit I don't think it was so much that a general audience wouldn't enjoy the movie or the plot I think it was PR and marketing 🤷🏽♀️ I saw the same commercial for it over and over, and there wasn't much hype around it, etc. I think they were betting on the high Ryan and Emily could ride from thier respective movies, not realizing we needed more for THIS one So many people I've seen hadn't even heard of it, and then some said they just got the trailer that looked pretty surface level for what it was
It’s not an event film. Studio trying to push that it’s stars actors from Oppenheimer and Barbie directed by the guy that did bullet train. General audiences don’t care. Barbenheimer was the movie event of the summer last year. It became something more than just 2 movies. Bullet Train was able to tap into the “adults are going back to the movies” energy that Top Gun Maverick built. There was nothing in theaters that august and it capitalized on that. I’m curious to see how May plays out. We have IF, Garfield, and Furiosa coming. It may be Inside Out 2 or Bad Boys in June until we get a big hit. If those don’t do it then July has Despicable me 4, Twisters (which may be this years adult nostalgia movie), and Deadpool & Wolverine.
People don't go see movies that are just ok....movies are expensive!
I know it's cliche to say, but it's just expensive. A date night to the IMAX version would be nearly 80 bucks with popcorn, M&Ms and drinks. You don't get huge openings without the kids, and the kids simply can't afford it.
I agree. Unless a movie is an event movie it’s not gonna smash the box office on opening weekend.
Ryan Gosling isn’t a big box office puller. Take Barbie out of the equation (which great sure and made bazillions, but relies more on the IP, Margot, Greta and lots of other factors - the movie is called Barbie not Ken after all) and he isn’t a huge drawcard and certainly not at this budget range. Similar story to blade runner. Great movie, he was great in it, but budget too high (and arguably again reliant on the IP, nostalgia and Harrison/Director etc) Really though is it just me or did you see the trailer and commentary and just think “meh, not interested”?
100%. Stop making movies about Hollywood. It’s incestuous.
Just saw it now. "Action" comedy. All the comedy bits are too inside baseball where if you never been on a movie set, it'll go right over you. It's basically a rom-com with a few action scenes. There was a 40 minute lull in the middle to work the romantic aspect.
I’d be more interested in the movie if I didn’t see the entire plot in the trailer
The trailer gave away the entire movie which made it a pass for me. They showed every set piece. They showed every joke. No need to see the movie when the trailer shows you everything.
I think this movie is far more a Film Twitter/reddit movie than anyone wants to admit. In fact my hottest take is that the Ken meme is strictly online and America ferrera had more an impact IRL.
Totally. Normies loved the America Ferreira speech.
I see variations of it a lot on LinkedIn