For the first time since 2009, the box office doesn’t have a Marvel film to kick off the summer movie season — and it shows. Since the 2008 release of “Iron Man,” Marvel Cinematic Universe films have consistently launched this highly lucrative moviegoing season, with only two films generating less than $100 million openings in that time (not including pandemic years). This year, the headline film for the first summer weekend was Universal’s “The Fall Guy.” And despite strong marketing efforts and solid reviews, it failed to drum up ticket sales during its opening last weekend. The film tallied less than $28 million during its domestic debut. (Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.) “‘The Fall Guy’ had quality co-stars in Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, but the lack of a known franchise brand and a niche storyline made it too narrow to attract a mass summer-like audience,” Eric Handler,…
