After a disastrous opening weekend showing for the movie reboot of Baywatch, the film is set to premier in Germany on Wednesday and Paramount Pictures is surely hoping to bank on David Hasselhoff’s Baywatch legacy to breath some life into movie.
Hasselhoff, despite being born in Maryland, is instantly synonymous with Germany and his role on the Baywatch TV series… it’s a very odd and fascinating phenomenon. His singing career in the U.S. is a joke, but in Germany it’s a hit. So banking on the country’s love affair with anything that involves ‘The Hoff’ couldn’t hurt right?
Aside from a brief cameo, Hasselhoff has little involvement with the new film. Instead, stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Zac Efron and Priyanka Chopra, who was spotted promoting and attending the film’s red carpet premier in Berlin on Tuesday.
Baywatch may have hoped to play off its holiday weekend spot in the U.S., but sharing it with Pirate’s of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth installment of the successful franchise, was a gamble. The movie only took in $27.6 million over the weekend, far off from its $69 million budget, but the continued success of its longtime brand in Germany and elsewhere may recoup at least some of its U.S. loses.
