Fountain of Youth seems like a movie that all of the distributors passed on. It's not entirely clear whether Apple was involved with Fountain of Youth from the beginning, though there were signs, as early director choice Dexter Fletcher and production company Skydance were involved in Apple TV+ "Ghosted."
IMO, they were smart to go direct to streaming, even with the $180mm budget. Distribution, etc. costs can top $200mm-$300mm for a summer action film. And they'd been pitted against: Minecraft, Mision Impossible, The New Avengers, another Jurassic Park, yet another Karate Kid, How to Train Your Dragon, F1, etc. I honestly cannot see too many people paying $12+ to sit through that outside of their house. The trailers were mediocre, the movie was bland.
Agree with the takes here on the movie. Around 20 minutes in, I had a similar thought to those above: this seems bad, but it has to get better, right? Nope. I watched the entire thing. It is definitely worse than MineCraft, Mission Impossible, and The New Avengers (I have seen all of those). I suspect it will also be worse than F1 and Jurassic Park.
That all said, Apple needs to be careful about propagating too many stinkers. It has gained credibility with Slow Horsses, F & N, Severace, etc. I guess it has struggled with feature films...