For the most part, beautiful people casting smoldering gazes at each other against the backdrop of some stunning vistas can be leaned upon to draw in a crowd, but Into the Blue managed to flop at the box office back in 2005 despite ticking all of the aforementioned boxes.
Paul Walker and Jessica Alba spend the majority of the action thriller wearing nothing but swimwear, with the telegenic pairing playing a pair of divers who head off on an adventure with a couple of friends and stumble upon their dream after discovering that lurking beneath shark-infested waters might just be a mythical pirate ship said to be filled with a cargo worth untold riches.
It sounds stupid, and it certainly is, but Into the Blue really should have planted its tongue a lot further in its cheek. Taking itself way too seriously, the end result saw director John Stockwell’s $50 million frolic fail to recoup its production costs from theaters, with a 21 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and a Razzie nomination in the Worst Actress category for Alba rubbing salt water into the wound.
It did get a standalone sequel featuring nobody from the original, but it was wisely decided that Into the Blue 2: The Reef would never see the inside of a theater. That being said, the original has been showing some impressive sea legs by making an unexpected return to favor on streaming, with FlixPatrol revealing it to be one of the most-watched movies on ad-supported platform Freevee this week.
