Topline
Ryan Gosling’s return to the big screen after last summer’s blockbuster “Barbie” has so far been a box office disappointment despite rave reviews, pulling in $10.4 million domestically on its opening day on its way to a projected $28 million opening weekend, a long way to go before breaking even.
Key Facts
“The Fall Guy,” produced by Universal Pictures and directed by David Leitch, grossed $3 million in Thursday previews across over 4,000 theaters, included in its $10.4 million opening day figure, multiple outlets reported.
Analysts had projected the stuntman thriller starring Gosling alongside Emily Blunt and Hannah Waddingham—with a return by original “The Fall Guy” star Lee Majors—to pull in $40 million over the weekend, with Universal executives reportedly hoping to cash in on the so-called Gosling factor.
If the $28 million opening weekend figure holds up, “The Fall Guy” would still need to gross over $100 million more to catch its reported $130 million production budget, just below Barbie’s reported $145 million budget.
The slow start at the domestic box office puts “The Fall Guy” behind a spate of Universal flops, including “Argyle,” which made $17.4 million in its opening weekend in the U.S. in February, as well as January’s “Night Swim,” which posted a $11.8 million opening weekend.
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Contra
Universal’s latest releases have not all been blunders. Last month, the fourth installment of the “Kung Fu Panda” franchise with DreamWorks grossed nearly $58 million in its opening weekend, according to data from Box Office Mojo. Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award-winning “Oppenheimer” starring Cillian Murphy pulled in $82.4 million in its opening weekend last July.
Tangent
Despite its slow start, “The Fall Guy” has been met with generally positive reviews, with an 83% critics’ rating and an 84% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 73/100 critics’ rating on MetaCritic. In its review of the 1980s TV action remake, The New York Times lauded Gosling’s performance, saying he “charms as a swaggering” stuntman, with a charm that “just keeps going as he runs and leaps, tumbles and punches and vaults through the air like a rocket,” while lamenting an “underused” Blunt. People praised the action romance, saying it “succeeds,” with a “funny, heroic and unexpectedly touching” performance from Gosling.
