Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s new Baywatch did not do so well at the box office this weekend as studio estimates on Sunday say the R-rated film earned $18.1 million to take third place. The film cost nearly $70 million to make and is only projected to collect $26.6 million by the close of Memorial Day.
The fifth installment of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise took the number one spot, drawing $62.2 million in its first three days in theaters. The Johnny Depp-starrer is projected to take in $76.6 million over the four-day holiday weekend. It was the second-lowest domestic opening for the nearly $4 billion franchise, but the latest film, which cost a reported $230 million to produce, has massive international appeal. Its four-day global total is expected to hit $300 million.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”, which features former WWE Superstar Dave Batista, did better in its fourth weekend as the space opera added $19.9 million to take second place ahead of “Baywatch”.
According to a report from FOXNews.com, the “Baywatch” miss could be attributable to a couple of factors. Even with the star power of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Zac Efron, R-rated Hollywood updates to family friendly television shows have a dubious track record, ComScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian said. Earlier this year, Dax Shepard’s R-rated update of “CHiPs” tanked, netting only $18.6 million domestically against a $25 million budget.
The final Memorial Day weekend box office numbers will be released on Tuesday.
