The Fall Guy is falling short at the box office

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Ryan Gosling in The Fall GuyPhoto: Universal Studios

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt's new stuntperson love letter The Fall Guy is a pretty quick-moving movie, for all that it extends to a slightly surprising two-plus hours in length. But heroic stunt guy Colt Seavers (Gosling) isn't off to quite as swift a start at the box office, according to Variety, which reports that David Leitch's latest is expected to clear less than $30 million this weekend, coming in below initial expectations.

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That'll be enough to win the weekend box office, but not win win it; the first week of May has typically been reserved for big franchise blockbusters that do more than $100 million in their initial outing, and while nobody was expecting The Fall Guy to pull those kinds of numbers, it's still a massive step down from last year's Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, or the previous year's Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. Industry critics are also pointing out that The Fall Guy cost quite a lot to make, coming in at a $130 million budget, which it's going to have to really fight to recoup.

Of course, you could also argue that not caring quite so much about those numbers is a big part of what makes Leitch's film, with its devotion to the art of practical effects and stunts both in and out of the fiction, quite so fun: Watching the film in theaters, it's hard not to be struck by how cool it is to see a big jump, or a major stunt, happen on the screen, and know that it was the product of actual professionals working their asses off. None of which gets butts in seats like the name of a well-known superhero brand in the marquee, of course, but it does explain why the film has done so well with critics, and those audiences who have gone out to actually see it.

As for the rest of a very sleepy weekend box office: Luca Guadagnino's Challengers continued to do "Good for a Luca Guadagnino movie" amounts of money, bringing in $8.5 million more this weekend, just ahead of the re-re-re-release of Star Wars: Episode I. All of them beat new horror film Tarot, which will finish fourth, with a $6.25 million take.