'The Fall Guy' Will Take the Fall for Hollywood's Crisis

I watched 'The Fall Guy' again and I'm more and more convinced that we're doing ourselves a disservice if we don't watch it in cinemas until it's too late.

In recent weeks there is one film that dominates the Online Film Discourse™ and for all the wrong reasons: ‘The Fall Guy’ recently opened in cinemas and made a less-than-stellar box office. Now some of the reactions which expressed surprise trouble me and let me tell you why.

It is almost a cliché to say that the movie industry, but specifically Hollywood is in crisis. One could even say it only exists in a permanent state of crisis, and almost always in a self-inflicted one. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the industry seems to be incapable realising that the usual conclusions are no longer applicable in the current climate, or the very least they are only as reliable as folk observations regarding tomorrow’s weather. You cannot sell a movie now the same way you did in 1999, or even 2008. And you can dump all the money in the world at a marketing agency, it will not get bums on seats. The doomerist perspective would have you believe that if current trends continue the only audience any movie will have in the future is the “Artificial Intelligence” as it digests the sweat and tears of hundreds of industry professionals, to process it and regurgitate hundreds of derivative “works” to be slavishly made into “new films”, because that’s the kind of reality we created for ourselves. I’m sorry, I’m once again side-tracked myself, where was I? Oh yes, ‘The Fall Guy’.

Hollywood studios have always relied on the one sure-fire thing that makes a movie a hit. It’s the genre! – said the clever bright chap in the suit that cost more than one’s own education: we need comedies! And until audiences resolutely told “NO” repeatedly to them, they surely churned them out. Then there was a period of “hybrid genres” the action-comedies, the musical-comedies, the sci-fi westerns – and when those didn’t pan out to be the source of Infinite Money, then it was decreed that we must make “pure” genre films. No more romantic comedies, either be romantic, or comedy. Forget about genres, have The Movie Star™! If you put, let’s find a random example, John Wayne into your picture, there’s a guarantee that X number of people – namely fans of John Wayne – will flock to the cinema, regardless of what the movie is. Sometimes it’s a Western, a war movie, or, yes, Genghis Khan. But by the 2000s it became clear that movie stars no longer have the drawing power on their own: cinema is no longer the pre-eminent form of entertainment, television changed, adapted, and became just as prestigious and celebrated as movies. Since the 1990s other forms of entertainment cropped up, and by now a hundred million times more “things” are competing for our attention. YouTube, social media in and of themselves gave voice to millions, now the formerly segregated niche hobbies are accessible to everyone around the world, and everyone is communicating relentlessly in text, voice, and video. No wonder that we have a hard time admitting to the fact that cinema, movies, motion pictures are just one among the ocean of CONTENT. I know, I hate the ‘c’ word as anyone else, but it is what it is. And since content is King, then the Next New Thing that is going to make certain that the movie is a box office hit – make it an already existing and popular Intellectual Property. This is how we ended up with the Pirates of the Caribbean, the Harry Potter movies and of course the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And now, when even Disney is struggling to sell tickets to the Ant Man Sequels, it’s even more alarming that Hollywood refuses to engage with this new reality and tries to solve problems the old ways. Where am I going with this? Oh yes, ‘The Fall Guy’.

Look at the bold face: this film is based on an already existing Intellectual Property starring arguably the biggest stars Hollywood has at the moment, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. It’s also an action-packed romantic comedy, that exist in and of itself, not part of a massive ongoing saga where you need to be up-to-date with what came before. Kicking off the Summer Blockbuster Season™ with this seemed like a good idea, certainly before the more anticipated next chapters of already successful film franchises arrive. And it didn’t work. At the time of writing conventional wisdom tells you that it will lose Universal around $80 million, which is not encouraging. Here’s the problem: ‘The Fall Guy’ is not a bad movie.

I am *definitely* not the person to listen about how good or bad ‘The Fall Guy’ is: I am a sucker for what it has to offer. First and foremost, it’s a big, populist piece of entertainment that’s *not* a part of an ongoing series or dare I say Cinematic Universe. I have grown to hate those, especially since the real inciting incident of The Rise of Skywalker was put in a Fortnite event. It’s not in the damn movie. Why do I have to be aware of a thing called Fortnite for me in order to understand the story? Give me my Goddamn movie, don’t force me to catch up on ancillary materials. ‘The Fall Guy’ is also part of a frequently reoccurring phenomena of a television show adaptation. Usually studios pick a beloved series from yesteryear, preferably from a decade that’s making a comeback at the time, and recasting the main roles with younger, hipper, sexier actors and actresses. The results vary between ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’ and ‘Starsky And Hutch’ – make of that coordinate system what you will. One school is adamant that because these properties are mainly the result of nostalgia, you *must* at least pay lip service to what came before – the very least film-makers should at least give a salute to the original creators in some way, usually inviting the original lead actor for a brief cameo. The other school of thought tries to distance itself as much as possible from the source, modernising and updating it until very little is left of what you remember from your childhood. I have a soft spot for these films, while not being very good movies, at times they are down-right terrible, somehow I still find them entertaining, mainly because they look like the fake movies that are being made in films about film-making – and the two McG helmed Charlie’s Angels films maxed out on the meta-meaning by having Matt LeBlanc play an actor headlining a suspiciously ‘Mission: Impossible’-coded franchise.

‘The Fall Guy’ to a large extent decided to ignore the television series, a decision I personally agree with. One, it’s directed by stuntman-turned-stunt-coordinator-turned-director David Leitch, who has a slate of exciting but flawed back catalogue as a director – no, I will not let go of the fact that in ‘Atomic Blonde’ they spend an inordinate amount of time to insert a CGI-River Spree of 1989’s Berlin into a chase sequence when in other setups you can clearly see that they’re filming on the very contemporary streets of Budapest, without any attempt to at least *trying* to set dress that away. And yes that includes the decidedly not East Berlin compatible underground trains. You might say the target audience won’t notice to which I have two things to say: 1. You don’t give enough credit to film-goers, they are not stupid and 2. As long as *I* notice it, it will remain a problem. And two – I’m using two similar listing in one paragraph, that must break some sort of rule about writing, don’t you think? – I don’t think that ‘The Fall Guy’ television series is any… good. Okay, I wasn’t brought up with it, I watched other successful shows from the 80s, but even with that one has to admit, the series was a bit anachronistic to its time. The stuntman who moonlights as a bail bondsman has a certain lineage more closely related to ‘The Rockford Files’ and ‘Charlie’s Angels’ than ‘Magnum PI’. Also other than the occasional wink to its contemporaries – in a memorable episode taking place in Hawaii Colt Seavers bumps into Tom Selleck on the set of ‘Magnum PI’ – it doesn’t really say a whole lot about film-making. Other than that like any professional in the business he needs to do odd jobs to make ends meet. Wage disparity is never raised as an issue beyond to be the motivation to get on with the plot of the episode.

Now that I thoroughly insulted fans of ‘The Fall Guy’ and the ‘Six Million Dollar Man’ I’m going to say something controversial: The Fall Guy is a perfectly serviceable movie. It’s fun, really. You probably didn’t hear about it other than the think-pieces. I completely understand if it didn’t hold your attention that much: the plot is as simple as it comes, the beauty of it is in the details. First of all, I like a bit of romantic comedy, and despite what journalists on the Internet want to tell you, the backlash against depicting sex and sexuality on the screen doesn’t come from some born-again prudery of Gen Z or something. It’s just we’ve seen so much of it done so badly, we’d rather live without it. In this movie, somewhat inverting the trope, it’s not the woman’s job to change in order to make the relationship work: it’s on the man, and I like that. I also buy into the relationship between Colt and Jody, because they’re well written as a couple and, well, Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling play off each other well. They’re good actors, this shouldn’t be a surprise, although I’m glad that this time around someone wrote a proper part for Emily Blunt other than just to stare at Cillian Murphy while angrily smoking.

However the marketing campaign for the movie however was less than remarkable: some agency had no idea how to sell a movie that’s based on an Intellectual Property few remember from the 1980s – we’re not talking about ‘The A-team’ levels of cultural impact here – so they went down the usual “re-orchestrated 80s power ballad music, heavily reliant on the quips of the main character with bits of set pieces” school of trailers and bland and uninspiring billboards. Even the early start didn’t help, capitalising on Ryan Gosling’s then-recent Oscar nomination didn’t help when the star’s talk show appearances preceded the premier by two months. That’s too much time and unless you plan on hogging the airways and social media for weeks on end – a task that’s hard for even the most comms savvy individuals – it’s not going to help you that much.

So what we have here? A blockbuster movie costing around $130 million, out of step with the last round of “tv show turned movie” wave with an underwhelming but expensive marketing campaign and less-than-favourable reviews – as much as I don’t think reviews have the impact people tend to think they have, certainly didn’t help that the leading story about the movie wasn’t the amazing stunts but how expensive and unprofitable it is. And it will never make its money back, not since the secondary markets collapsed. Sixteen years ago there were other avenues to monetise a movie in DVDs, Blu-Rays, foreign TV sales – by now you get a two or three week long run in theatres – if any – and then it’s dumped on the studio’s own streaming service, or sold to Netflix or Amazon, never to be seen or heard from again. Because don’t believe who tells you otherwise: streaming isn’t the money maker as people tried to convince you. It’s certainly convenient for customers, but by the time you get all the services you want to watch films or shows on – congratulations, we reinvented cable TV. Only worse. Now you get to watch adverts again, when the original sales pitch was “no more ads, just the shows.”

In lieu of physical media, a lot of these films and shows will disappear without a trace, and no one will remember them. Much like no one will remember ‘The Fall Guy’, and that’s a shame. Not that it’s a notable entry into the universal film history, but it’s a fun entertaining piece of film with nice stunts and a cute love story in the middle. Nothing earth-shattering but… and I know when I’m going to write this down a lot of you will recoil in horror – it’s something nice. And as much as we shouldn’t cry a whole lot about a studio movie, it’s financial failure will have ramifications beyond Hollywood movies.

Because I fear ‘The Fall Guy’ will inevitably make everyone to learn the wrong lessons: since it comes across as an original movie and not something that’s based on an existing IP, audiences will learn to not care about original movies. Studios will learn that not every Intellectual Property is created equal – if it doesn’t have a built-in audience, it might as well be dead, let’s stick to already existing AND profitable IPs, this is why we are getting more Harry Potters and ANOTHER set of ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies. In other words: they will be even more risk averse, and we’ll get nothing but the few franchise juggernauts.

As a coda to this, I observed something interesting: as much as we tend to repeat the mantra that “movie stars are dead”, here’s Ryan Gosling. It’s hard to argue against that he is the biggest male star in Hollywood currently – and interestingly enough, most of his films are financial flops. Even ones that are supposed to be blockbusters, ‘Blade Runner 2049’ was a sequel to a very much loved film, something that fans were screaming for, and still flopped. ‘First Man’ – good movie, great performance, flopped. Does anyone remember ‘The Nice Guys’? Flopped. ‘Barbie’ didn’t but that was such a big cultural phenomenon thanks to the ‘Barbenheimer’ thing that there was no way it would not make billions of dollars to the studio.

What I would like to say this, as a huge proponent of independent cinema and things that are outside of the mainstream: if you want to save movies, if you want to retain cinema into the next few decades, go and see ‘The Fall Guy’. Because in a weird and ironic way this studio movie made for $130 million might juts be the thing that could potentially convince Hollywood studios that it’s worth going out of their comfort zone – even if it’s not that far.