Alien: Covenant
Budget: $97 million
Domestic gross: $74.3 million
Worldwide gross: $233.1 million
Alien: Covenant had everything going for it. Apart from being another installment of the iconic Alien franchise, it had Ridley Scott at the helm. As the title made clear, while it was a sequel to the critically-mixed but financially-successful Prometheus, it also featured the return of the Xenomorphs to the franchise.
Despite all this, audiences still didn’t flock to see it. It’s likely that poor word of mouth didn’t help, as the film was widely viewed as a disappointment. Still, that doesn’t account for its awful opening weekend, which failed to rake in the (already lowered) goal of $40 million. It got worse by the next weekend, too, when ticket sales had fallen by an eye-wateringly bad 71%.
Even with overseas takings, Alien: Covenant still came out with $170 million less than Prometheus made overall. For whatever reason, then, the prospect of another Scott-directed Alien movie just did not go over well with global audiences. As such, we don’t expect to see the director’s planned sequels any time soon.
Baywatch
Budget: $69 million
Domestic gross: $119.3 million
Worldwide gross: $177.4 million
In a world where 1980s teen cop show 21 Jump Street was reinvented as a successful action-comedy, it made sense on paper to try and do the same thing with cheesy lifeguard drama Baywatch. Unfortunately, even with a cast that was full of scantily-clad attractive young stars and franchise favourite Dwayne Johnson, Baywatch ended up sprawling in the water.
Though initially predicted to make $40 million in its opening weekend, Baywatch ended up grossing a measly $18 million and only manged to open at third at the box office. After North America failed to take to the movie, it was hoped that it would soar in Europe instead, where the original show – and star David Hasselhoff – were very popular. However, that didn’t do the trick, either.
As many people involved in poorly-received movies have done before, Johnson took to Twitter to denounce critics for damaging Baywatch‘s success. Sorry, Dwayne, but the fact that it was a rubbish movie is what damaged its success.