‘Baywatch’ Falling Behind in the Box Office! Find out the reason Behind it!!

Published on May 29, 2017 | Published By: prisma pulitzer | In Career , Entertainment

Baywatch is going down!
It was smooth sailing to the top spot at the box office for “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” but the waters were choppier for the Dwayne Johnson comedy “Baywatch.”

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Baywatch in the Box Office

“Baywatch” wasn’t expected to be an enormous hit. Yet this Paramount/Skydance’s latest film has failed to reach even the modest expectations of box office projections.

Dwayne Johnson: his smooch with Zac Efron, his midas touch and his movie ‘Baywatch’: Read on it here! — Source: Refinery29 (Dwayne and Zac)

The makers made the film with a budget of $ 68 million. “Baywatch” has a five-day total of $26 million. This is well below the $40-42 million target set by independent trackers.

That number will barely beat out the four-day $24.4 million total estimated for “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” in its fourth weekend.

The film was savaged by critics, as it received only 18 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. There were hopes that leading man Dwayne Johnson, who has become one of the most popular actors in Hollywood, could sustain audience interest in the film.

Instead, “Baywatch” has failed to outperform another R-rated Dwayne Johnson title, “Pain & Gain,” which had a three-day opening of $24 million.

The R-rated “Baywatch,” is sinking like a rock. The earnings have been less than expected. Including Thursday earnings, the film is projected to collect $26.6 million by the close of Memorial Day.

Three Reasons

According to The Wrap here are three reasons why ‘Baywatch’ Didn’t make the cut

1) Heavy Competition

Let’s get the obvious reasons out of the way. “Pirates of the Caribbean,” another PG-13 adventure with Captain Jack Sparrow has more appeal. Its box office upside for Memorial Day audiences is more than an R-rated comedy.

“Guardians Vol. 2” is also faring better. Both franchises remain relatively fresher in the minds of audiences.

2) Missing the point of “Baywatch”

The iconic image of “Baywatch” was of David Hasselhoff running on the beach with buxom women. The series itself had an early evening slot during much of its run. For example, the relationship between Hasselhoff’s character, Mitch Buchannon, and his son was a common plot thread, as Mitch tried to be an upstanding single parent.

“Baywatch” the movie, on the other hand, aims for sleazy slapstick comedy and was marketed to audiences who might have enjoyed the antics of Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill on their adaptation of “21 Jump Street.”

TV spots for the film featured a gag where Johnson (stepping into Hasselhoff’s role) and Zac Efron’s hotshot character peruse a corpse’s most intimate parts for evidence.

By attempting to use a show that was a family-friendly melodrama at its heart as the basis for a raunchy comedy, “Baywatch” put off both fans of the show and casual audiences who didn’t care for the source material.

3) Male gaze vs. female gaze

Yes, it’s a crass thing to analyze, but let’s face it: one of the most enduring legacies of “Baywatch” was that it made Pamela Anderson the biggest sex symbol of the 90s. While the storylines helped keep the show kid-safe, it was the bountiful amount of male gaze Anderson and her fellow lady lifeguards got that hooked the 18-35 male demographic.

Zac Efron on ‘Baywatch’ Swallows a Dead Man’s Fat And Wears a Dress and it’s Beautiful!! All the shirtless scene and sexiness in movie with the Splash of Bromance!!! — Source: castingcallhub

The movie’s marketing, on the other hand, puts the focus largely on Johnson and Efron, with their ripped physiques on display for a female gaze instead.

Paramount’s marketing team can’t be blamed for doing this. Johnson, after all, is one of Hollywood’s social media titans, with his pictures lifting weights regular fodder for his Instagram followers.

Efron, meanwhile, has shed the squeaky clean image of his “High School Musical” years and has found raunch success with the “Neighbors” films, where he also gave his fair share of the female gaze.

Still, none of the female lifeguards in the film are given a chance in the film or marketing to match Anderson’s presence. Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, and Ilfenesh Hadera are secondary to the film’s marketing.

Also, in the film, their characters are nowhere near fleshed out as their TV counterparts. Putting more focus on them in both departments might have given the film broader appeal.

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