There’s no such thing as a sure thing in Hollywood, but you can certainly stack some of the odds in your favour. Having Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling as your stars certainly won’t hurt, with a script that is action-packed, peppered with old fashioned romance.

So US director David Leitch must have been confident going into the release of his film. The thing about confidence however, is that it doesn’t sell tickets or guarantee bums on seats. So what went wrong?

Working on an action film as the main star’s stuntman is Colt Seavers (Gosling). However, when a stunt goes badly wrong leaving Colt with a broken back, he decides to walk away from his career, believing the reason the stunt didn’t go to plan was down to him.

A year later, Colt gets a call from producer Gail (Hannah Waddingham) saying that he’s needed to help with big budget film Metalstorm starring Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) – the actor he regularly doubles for.

Colt isn’t interested, until he learns who the director is – Jody Moreno (Blunt), who was an assistant camera person on his last film whom he had a relationship with; he hasn’t spoken to her since the accident, and as she asked for him specifically, believes this could be the perfect time to mend bridges.

So he’s full of hope when he arrives in Australia, where the film is shooting, but things start to go get complicated very fast when the film’s star Ryder goes missing, and producer Gail tasks Colt with getting him back.

Leitch’s film is unapologetically old school; it takes its inspiration from the eighties TV show of the same name, that starred Lee Majors, and builds on it, with not only an homage to that, but to the world of the stuntman in general.

It transpires to be the perfect antidote to CGI as it mostly relies on physical stunts that are shot in camera, just as they did in the good old days. And the results are spectacular.

It also benefits from having Blunt and Gosling sizzle on screen, with the kind of chemistry only seen in science labs. Blunt has more of the Katherine Hepburn about her, providing the kind of sparkling performance very rarely seen these days. And Gosling’s trademark monotone delivery hints at the likes of Cary Grant, gifting the film some classic Hollywood magic.

And even Leitch’s direction is incredibly lively and creative, that delivers an energy all of its own, with the director in a fully playful mode that is most noticeable when he cuts his shots in time to some classic tunes.

The film then is a joyful blockbuster that is like a breath of fresh air in today’s somewhat stale climate of on-going franchises and heavily reliance on old IP’s. So why did it fail?

It’s difficult to say as to why audiences kept away, which they did in their droves, to the point where the film is considered a major flop.

Perhaps it’s a case whereby audiences need to be re-educated again after being force-fed a formula of bland entertainment for so many years; it’s akin to someone on a pure diet of beige suddenly being introduced something far more exotic and colourful, and just reacting negatively to it.

It’s painful to see it take such a big hit; not only does it not deserve it, but more worryingly, it may well indicate to studios that audiences simply aren’t ready for something other than what they’re already getting, and shy away from anything more creative.

At least this is an extended release, with 20 minutes extra footage, which with more Gosling and Blunt, can only be a good thing.

This then is the perfect summer blockbuster that should have been. It will no doubt find its audience over time, but it can’t help but feel this was a missed opportunity to tell Hollywood that yes, we are very much ready for a change.

If you like funny, romantic action flicks, then you are guaranteed to fall for its many, many charms.