THE FALL GUY
STUNT PERFORMERS ARE GETTING THEIR DUES IN THE FALL GUY, A CROWD-PLEASING, GENRE-BLENDING MIX OF ACTION THRILLER AND ROMANTIC COMEDY THAT CELEBRATES THE OLD-SCHOOL VIRTUES OF PRACTICAL ACTION AND STAR CHEMISTRY IN A THOROUGHLY MODERN WAY. TOTAL FILM MEETS STARS RYAN GOSLING AND EMILY BLUNT AND FILMMAKING TEAM DAVID LEITCH AND KELLY McCORMICK TO FIND OUT HOW THEY STUCK THE LANDING.
Even if you didn’t grow up on action-packed 80s TV series The Fall Guy – which didn’t get quite the same traction in the UK as The A-Team, Knight Rider and Magnum P.I. – a cursory glance at the premise makes it sounds like perfect film-adaptation fodder. Lee Majors (The Six Million Dollar Man) starred as Colt Seavers, a movie stuntman who uses his day-job skills in a side hustle as a bounty hunter.
That premise also sounds perfect for director David Leitch, the stunt performer turned director behind the likes of John Wick, Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw and Bullet Train, who tells Total Film that he ‘jumped at it immediately’ when the project found its way to his production and action design company, 87North, which he founded with his wife and producing partner Kelly McCormick.
Leitch did grow up on the 80s TV series, which was formative for him. ‘I watched it as a kid,’ he tells Total Film. ‘Colt Seavers was the coolest guy on the planet – this guy that wasn’t looking for the spotlight, but he had a pretty interesting set of skills because he was a stuntman.’ While the fun and tongue-in-cheek approach made for great Friday-night family viewing, for Leitch, it ran deeper than that. ‘For my generation of stunt people, it led to a lot of us to want to find out what that career was all about,’ he says.
Working with producer Guymon Casady, who’d brought the project to 87North, Leitch and McCormick quickly assembled a package – Ryan Gosling would star (and also produce), and Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3, Hobbs & Shaw) was on screenplay duties. Unsurprisingly, it was quickly snapped up by Universal, but like a stunt scrutinised and safety-tested from all angles, it underwent quite a transformation on its journey to the screen.
‘That first sizzle was basically an LA noir story, and that’s what we sold,’ says McCormick. While the film does retain noirish elements (and some tonal similarities with Gosling’s 2016 comedy thriller The Nice Guys), it’s a hell of a lot more besides.
