“The Real Cancun” (2003)

[TMC]

Does anyone else remember when the Real World producers tried creating “reality movies”?

In 2003, reality TV was taking over television, and The Real World producers/creators wanted to take their success to the big screen, and create “reality movies”. It’s basically reality TV filmed over a few days and cut down to 2 hours or less, and the selling point was it could show more than what reality TV could back then (streaming wasn’t a thing yet). Also, it would get filmed, and unlike a real movie, could be edited and released fast, as there were no scripts, screenplays etc.

They filmed The Real Cancun over 10 days, and cast 16 college students and filmed them on spring break in Cancun. It was filmed from March 13-23, 2003, and would be released to theaters the following month, on April 25, 2003. It cost them $7.5 million to make (without the marketing) and only earned $5 million at the box office. It was a critical and financial bomb, killing the new movie genre The Real World people hoped to make a thing.