Going into the summer, Baywatch seemed like a surefire hit.
It had two huge stars in Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron, a great supporting cast, and a
director who knows how to sell big-budget comedies.
But the film did a massive belly-flop at the box office over its opening weekend, falling
way short of expectations, earning just $18 million in the US.
So what went wrong with the once buzzy Baywatch?
Here are some of the reasons the movie bombed.
Let's begin with the obvious...
Awful reviews
Baywatch immediately began to sink when reviews were released, with critics questioning why
it even existed in the first place.
Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter knocked the movie for unnecessary vulgarity, saying
that the movie's desire to push the envelope rarely works for anything other than shock
value.
Entertainment Weekly said even Johnson's charisma couldn't save the film.
Rolling Stone's Peter Travers disagreed, saying the only good thing about the movie was Johnson's
performance, but describing the script as full of "sitcom leftovers."
It's no secret that awful reviews can drown a film pretty quickly, but for R-rated comedies,
reviews are especially critical.
For every successful edgy comedy like The Hangover or Deadpool, there are movies like
The Brothers Grimsby and Hot Tub Time Machine 2, which both took quick nosedives at the
box office after bad reviews hit.
There 's definitely still a market for adult humor, but viewers don't seem to be willing
to take the risk on comedies that critics pan, especially when they could just be walking
into two hours of gross humor and vomit gags.
"Hey, a foot!
That's good luck, pick it up."
And if you think reviews don't matter to the younger audience that Baywatch was depending
on, think again.
A study that Paramount conducted revealed that a majority of younger moviegoers regularly
rely on review aggregator sites like Rotten Tomatoes to determine how they're going to
spend their movie-going bucks.
Memorial Day crash
Baywatch's awful performance on its opening weekend wasn't entirely its own fault.
The movie was plopped down in the middle of Memorial Day weekend's worst box office since
1999, with the four-day total coming in at just $172.3 million domestic.
The box office hasn't dipped lower since the weekend Star Wars: The Phantom Menace premiered,
when the total haul was $142.5 million.
Some analysts predict the summer of 2017 as a whole could be a box office bummer, with
TV and streaming releases pulling viewers away from the draw of the big screen.
This summer could see a number of other huge flops joining Baywatch.
All of them will be looking to recoup their budgets overseas, where the waters may be
a bit friendlier.
Tough competition
It's going to be a tough task for any movie to find a way to stop the box office juggernaut
that is Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2.
The film was in its fourth weekend in theaters when Baywatch hit, but it still managed to
top the comedy, adding another $25 million to its nearly $800 million worldwide haul.
Baywatch also had another battle-tested enemy in Pirates of the Caribbean, returning after
a six-year break for Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Add that to the likes of Alien: Covenant, Snatched, and the surprising rom-com hit Everything,
Everything, and it's clear how Baywatch had some stiff competition when it came to grabbing
viewers.
And there's even more competition on the horizon, with Wonder Woman bursting onto the scene
during Baywatch's second weekend, and Tom Cruise's The Mummy joining for its third.
Baywatch isn't a big deal
Having Efron and Johnson on board for Baywatch definitely helped get audiences out to the
theaters, but the studio dramatically overestimated just how much people cared about, you know,
Baywatch.
Yes, the TV series was a minor hit during its run, and has become a small cult hit since.
But it isn't currently available on any major streaming service as of the making of this
video, making it unlikely that young people would have discovered it like they've discovered
some older series.
Baywatch also shot itself in the foot by alienating fans of the original TV show.
This probably isn't a movie hardcore Baywatch fans would actually want to see.
The Baywatch movie is full of all of the shock value an R rating will allow, but the Baywatch
TV series never took things past basic cable levels of vulgarity, which isn't much.
"I thought we were lifeguards."
"Everything that you guys are talking about sounds like a really entertaining but farfetched
TV show."
Ultimately, fans of the original series wouldn't be able to recognize the movie, while young
audiences were expected to pick up on an unfamiliar brand and head out to theaters.
Without a solid approach to any demographic, very few people were interested in giving
the movie a chance.
And for anyone who did actually head out to see the beached whale that is Baywatch, the
film's thinness ultimately made it forgettable for viewers — despite the surprisingly high
user review score the movie's earned on Rotten Tomatoes.
No matter how high that user review score climbs, it probably won't be enough to provide
the word-of-mouth necessary to carry it through choppy box office waters.
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