Last weekend, after only 3 weeks, the summer box office was already -10% below the previous year. With this weekend’s not-so-hot new releases, Baywatch and Pirates 5, coming in well below expectations, that number is almost certainly going to look a lot worse come Tuesday morning. So what happened? After all…
Memorial Day weekend is supposed to be the weekend America goes to the movies — Hollywood’s Black Friday. With three whole days off, summer in the air, and a slew of hot titles playing everywhere, what’s to stop us from enjoying the age-old ritual of dropping into the air conditioned dark for a couple hours of big-budget escapism? Actually, there is quite a lot, including movie stars no one really likes, the joy-killer of political correctness (I’m looking at you, Baywatch) an industry long out of ideas, out of interesting brands to remake (I’m looking at you, Baywatch), and the fact that we now enjoy a whole slew of options (like Netflix) that are a whole lot cheaper than the cost of being disappointed (again) by Hollywood.
How bad was this Memorial Day weekend? So bad it made 2016’s Memorial Day weekend look good by comparison, even though two titles now considered flops were released at this time last year: X-Men: Apocalypse and Alice Through the Looking Glass. The former cleared $80 million, the latter $33 million.
This year, Pirates 5 skidded into just $77 million over the 4 days, while Baywatch outright belly-flopped with just $26.6 million. Johnny Depp’s latest outing as the iconic Captain Jack Sparrow was supposed to kiss $90 million. Dwayne Johnson in those iconic red swim trunks was tracking a cool $50 million. Whoops!
Overall, this year the top 10 box office champs cleared $168 million over the last 4 days, compared to $198 million last year.
Not good, y’all.
Personally, I think Disney should light a candle to the Movie Gods to thank them for Pirates 5 doing as well as it did. Between Johnny Depp’s personal issues, including five years of box office flops and a messy divorce that stripped him of the goodwill stars require to remain stars, and a 14-year-old franchise that doesn’t feel as though it is offering anything new, $77 million is a gift.
Baywatch, however, deserved to tank. For going on two years I have been warning that America is pretty much over the raunchy R-rated comedy. Regardless, that is how Baywatch was sold. But that wasn’t the stupid part. What was unforgivably stupid was refusing to market this remake using the hook that made the long-running television show so iconic: HOT BABES, SMOKIN’ HARDBODIES IN TIGHT SWIMSUITS — I’m talking about leggy blondes with bodacious bewbs that make a man happy to be alive, impossibly sexy women torturing Manmerica with a sweet taste of what they can’t have.
Yes, you idiots in Hollywood, I am straight-up talking about objectifying the hell out of sexy goddesses. No one wanted to see a remake of Baywatch where it looks like someone used a tire pump to blow David Hasselhoff up into The Rock. What we wanted was another Pam Anderson, another Yasmine Bleeth, and oh my gawd yes, another Carmen Electra. All. In. Slow. Motion.
What were you morons thinking selling the guy-bods of Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron? Please do name the politically-correct, super-woke, metrosexual pajama boy or the frigid, joyless feminist who sold you on marketing Baywatch — (Baywatch!!) as an R-rated comedy/murder mystery without a single cheesecake shot in the trailer.
What’s next, Hollywood, you gunna sell the next Superman movie as a Clark Kent/Jimmy Olson newspaper drama?
Sex sells, you lumbering dolts, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with objectifying women who are willing to be objectified. There is also nothing more American. They agree to be objectified, we agree to objectify — this is the work of consenting adults.
The entire reason Baywatch was successful for so many years on television was completely ignored. This is the stupidest promotional campaign I have ever seen — ever.
Just like the lack of legs in Baywatch, the summer box office itself is showing none. Any hope Alien: Covenant might hold on a bit after last weekend’s disappointing opening were dashed with a disastrous second-weekend drop of -66%, or $13 million. Amy Schumer’s Snatched is officially hot death in week 3, with just $41 million to its name.
As always, Hollywood will look to the overseas box office for summer redemption, and it might just be there, but here in America, we have better things to do.
One high point is The Fate of the Furious, which became only the 6th title in history to reach $1 billion worldwide.
Source: Daily Wire
