Everybody in Hollywood is talking about the weak opening for The Fall Guy. Not just because of the movie itself but because it’s the official movie kicking off the summer movie season. That movie is always pulling double-duty. It’s got to do well for itself and it also has to get people in the movie-watching spirit for the rest of the summer.
The Fall Guy made only 28 million dollars. Which is, on average, a third of what movies usually make in this weekend slot.
The reason I didn’t see this movie is because I didn’t notice anything new in it. The movie may be about a unique subject matter (stunt men) but that’s not the impression the trailers gave. The trailers gave me a bunch of generic-looking explosions and guess what? I’ve seen about 10,000 generic movie explosions in my lifetime. Why would I pay 20 bucks to see a dozen more?
As I always say, YOU NEED TO GIVE US SOMETHING UNIQUE to have a shot at us showing up for your movie. The only chance you have at getting people to show up for a generic concept is if the direction is visionary. That’s, ironically, how Fall Guy’s director, David Leitch, got started. He took the most generic script ever – John Wick – and gave the world a tight slick carefully curated production that elevated a B-movie premise to look like an A-movie. No one had ever done that before.
Since then, Leitch has become sort of Michael Bay Jr. His movies are very slick-looking. They have that high production value with splosions everywhere you turn. But, just like Bay, there isn’t any soul in them.
Which is interesting because part of the reason John Wick worked was because of the soul. But I suspect it was Keanu Reeves who brought that soul. There’s something about that guy that elevates everything he’s in.
The Fall Guy’s failure is another reminder of how competitive the entertainment world has gotten. Cause, this morning, while eating breakfast, I watched a chess streamer on Youtube and then a “First Time Watch” video of The Princess Bride. Both of those videos, which added up to 1 hour of time, were highly entertaining. And that’s one hour I’m not spending on watching a new movie.
In other words, concepts have to be more compelling than ever to draw us away from countless other options. The only thing we know that gets butts in seats these days is the creme de la creme of comic book movies. Deadpool and Wolverine. Joker 2.
But, outside of that, you need to think long and hard about what’s going to get people into the theater. Challengers is a unique concept. So that did pretty well. Civil War as well. The Beekeper – a fresh spin on ‘guy-with-a-gun’ movies. Barbie felt completely different than anything that had come out. Even Anything But You, a generic rom-com if there ever was one, felt fresh to audiences because it had been forever since they had made a rom-com with a young cast.
It’s a bit of a mind-f**k, Hollywood. Because, on the surface, it seems like they only release generic stuff. But if you look closer, you realize that’s not true. Yeah, they love sequels, but those sequels were built on top of movies that broke out because they were fresh and new.
Wonka was different. The new Mean Girls is a musical. Guardians of the Galaxy was a total wildcard when the first movie debuted. As was the original Avatar. John Wick, as I pointed out, was sleek and cool and polished for a B-movie. Scream may have just come out with Scream 6, but the original blew the traditional slasher format out of the water.
Don’t get caught up in the fact that Hollywood loves IP because almost all of that IP was built on top of a movie that felt unique and fresh at the time. So that should still be the goal for you as a writer.
Speaking of uniqueness, how bout a movie about the Pop Tart?
I know this movie is getting a lot of sour milk poured on it, but you’re not going to see me bashing a Jerry Seinfeld film. You’re just not. I love Seinfeld. And if I can just get a few more jokes from him that remind me of the original sitcom? I’m happy.
Unfrosted feels like it was made in a vacuum. Which is both its biggest strength and biggest weakness. It’s a strength because you can tell nobody came in and “notesed” the writers to death, leaving them with a stale middle-of-the-road box of cereal. The joke-writers were unleashed. There were no restraints put on them.
Unfortunately, that led to the movie’s biggest weakness, which was an endless stream of the silliest jokes imaginable. I mean, there were at least 100 cereal-related puns in this script. But that’s a conservative estimate. It was probably closer to 200. I can handle a dozen cereal puns. I’m not sure anyone can handle 200.
What surprised me is that Jerry Seinfeld is 70 years old and yet he embraces some of the most juvenile humor this side of Johnny Knoxville. At one point, a rogue pop-tart comes alive and turns into a little creature that runs around and hides in drawers. It’s beyond wacky.
But the script does have its moments. My favorite set piece by far was the first test of the pop-tart. Our heroes are all safely hiding behind a big bunker (as if they’re preparing for a nuclear bomb test) and one of their assistants (in full oxygen hazmat suit) is tasked with putting the first pop-tart ever in the toaster. He has to operate within this “Fallout-esque” fake kitchen with fake family dummies and everything.
During the process of trying to toast the pop-tart, his oxygen tube gets loose and starts squirming around everywhere, then accidentally goes into the top of the toaster, causing the whole thing to explode and he just BLOWS UP AND DIES, lol. It was so wacky.
And they didn’t stop there! They follow this with a Kellog’s-funded funeral where, after they lower the casket into the ground, two people with giant boxes of cereal walk up and pour the cereal into the hole in the ground with the casket. Then another guy comes and pours a giant vat of milk into the hole. And then a final person comes with a giant spoon and starts stirring the milk and the cereal together. I admittedly could not stop cracking up, it was so stupid. But stupid funny!
And there were some good lines too. Hugh Grant plays this failed pissed off Shakespearean actor forced to be Tony the Tiger for Kellog. One day he’s drinking in a bar and a guy sees him and says, “I saw your one-man show of 12 Angry Men.” So there was at least one clever joke writer on this team.
Once you realize just how absurd the movie wants to be AND YOU ACCEPT THAT, it’s quite an enjoyable film. But I suspect some people aren’t going to be able to handle it. It’s one thing to not take yourself seriously. It’s another to be so dumb in places that it feels like you don’t care. This movie rode that line the whole way through.
It’s not going to be for everyone. But if you liked Seinfeld and you’re having a lousy day, this is definitely the movie for you. It’s going to cheer you up.
So, are there any lessons we learned from this weekend’s box office? The one lesson I’m reminded of is that the concept is always bigger than the actor. Hollywood bigwigs thought, “I’m Just Ken” was going to lead to a 75 million dollar Fall Guy opening no matter what. But people don’t see actors that way – at least not anymore. They see CHARACTERS. They see CONCEPTS. If they like a character, they’ll show up. They would definitely show up if this were a Ken spinoff movie. But as a totally new film about a stunt man? They don’t care that he was once Ken.
I’ll never forget the biggest example of this ever, which was Leonardo DiCaprio post-Titanic. There was never IN HISTORY a bigger actor than DiCaprio post-Titanic. You would’ve assumed that any movie he was in would’ve made 300 million at least. But the next movie he was in was The Man in the Iron Mask and NOBODY CARED. Nobody went to see it! It was a shocking lesson to me.
People don’t care about the actor. They care about the character and the concept. Which means YOU, the screenwriter, have the power. Give us that great concept. Give us that killer character. And we’ll show up, baby! :)
