Happy Cinco De Mayo, everyone! While we celebrate the weekend, we have a new summer to initiate, and the Ryan Gosling/Emily Blunt-led The Fall Guy didn’t quite hit those awe-inspiring stunt marks to kick off the first weekend of May.
An excellent action-comedy, giving a lovely ode to the stunt industry, wasn’t marketed enough or asseverated a common theme of how Hollywood projects can’t become sustainable enough without backing up a familiar IP or giving audiences something transformational. $28.5 million and $65.4 million would sound quite nice on another other title, but not when your budget is leveled to $125 million and has some insane competition heading its way for the summer season. As to why Gosling and Emily Blunt couldn’t skewer the numbers higher in their favor, it’s probably because they’re not treated as the big-box office marquee stars like Tom Cruise or even Sandra Bullock. Yes, Gosling did appear in last year’s critically acclaimed Barbie, but he was more of an added-value element alongside Margot Robbie, and he has a history of films flopping in terms of numbers (ask The Nice Guys and First Man, for instance).
The film will need significant standing legs to justify its budget, and the rest of the attractive titles for May (Kingdom of the Planet of Apes, IF, Furious: A Mad Max Saga, and The Garfield Movie) will strike against its momentum and demographics. Could China and Japan save it with a surplus? Maybe, but that’ll wait till summer ends for a definite answer. Titles like these now need a resurgence more than ever, when they were once the feared titles twenty years ago.
In other news, The Phantom Menace reopened in theaters to earn $8.08 million because May 4th is the “official” Star Wars holiday, and it celebrated 25 years. I’d be one to argue that this coveted brand and its return did diminish The Fall Guy‘s full potential, but take your pick. Challengers dipped 49% in its second weekend to earn $7.64 million and has passed $50 million worldwide; yes, Zendaya is no Tom Cruise, but she is starting to pull weight, especially with this and Dune: Part Two ($708 million worldwide and counting). I don’t believe it’ll have much strength to break even, so PVOD must make the difference. And Civil War earned $3.55 million in its fourth weekend, pushing its domestic total to $62 million.
Newcomer Tarot earned $6.5 million, Unsung Hero continues to tank with only $3 million in its second weekend, and Abigail earned $2.3 million in its third weekend. Godzilla x Kong and Kung Fu Panda 4 have topped $188 million domestically and continue to hold the fort for the box office until we get their follow-up titles this month to push the other demographics to carry the momentum. The latter has topped its predecessor box office reign, and the former might get to Skull Island‘s $568.6 million (only $22 million to go), but it could merely miss the ropes.
Next weekend, we will see the release of Kingdom of the Planet of Apes, Poolman, Not Another Church Movie, and The Last Stop in Yuma County.
