LOS ANGELES (AP) – Moviegoers were not exactly feeling the holiday spirit this weekend, or at least not based on their attendance at Red One showings.
The big budget, star-driven action comedy with Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans sold USD34.1 million in tickets in its first weekend in theatres, according to studio estimates last Sunday.
It easily topped a box office populated mostly by holdovers.
For traditional studios, a USD34.1 million debut against a USD200 million-plus production budget would be a clear indication of a flop. Some even peg the budget closer to USD250 million. But Red One is an Amazon MGM Studios release with the luxury of playing the long game rather than relying solely on global box office where Johnson tentpoles often overperform. The film may have a life on Prime Video for years to come.
Red One, in which Johnson plays Santa’s bodyguard, was originally built to go straight-to-streaming. It was greenlit prior to Amazon’s acquisition of MGM. One interpretation of its lifecycle is that the theatrical earnings are not only just a bonus, but an additive gesture toward struggling theatres looking for a consistent stream of new films.
“Amazon has 250 million plus worldwide subscribers to the platform. It’s similar to the way Netflix, I think, looks at stuff for their platform,” said Head of Distribution for Amazon MGM Studios Kevin Wilson. “There’s a there’s a massive value for a movie like this in terms of how many eyeballs you’re going to get.”
The first major studio holiday release since 2018, Red One opened on 4,032 screens, including IMAX and other large formats, on an otherwise quiet weekend for major releases.
“We’re really happy with the results,” Wilson said. “I think when you look at the theatrical marketplace that’s sometimes unforgiving, especially for original films, this is a good result for us.”
Since 2020, only seven films that weren’t sequels or based on another piece of intellectual property have opened over USD30 million (including Oppenheimer and Nope).
Warner Bros is handling the overseas release, where it has made an estimated USD50 million in two weekends from 75 territories and 14,783 screens.
Still, it’s certainly not a theatrical hit in North America. Even Joker: Folie à Deux made slightly more in its first weekend. Red One, directed by Jake Kasdan and produced by Johnson’s Seven Bucks, was roundly rejected by critics, with a dismal 33 per cent Rotten Tomatoes score. Jake Coyle, in his review for The Associated Press, wrote that it “feels like an unwanted high-priced Christmas present”.
Audiences were kinder than they were to Joker 2, giving it an A- CinemaScore, suggesting, perhaps, that the idea of it becoming a perennial holiday favourite is not so off-base.
Red One is also overperforming in the middle of the country, Wilson said, and perhaps will have a nice holdover over Thanksgiving as a different option to the behemoths on the way.
Sony’s Venom: The Last Dance added USD7.4 million this weekend’s box office to take second place, bringing its domestic total to USD127.6 million. Globally, its total stands at USD436.1 million.
Lionsgate’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever landed in third with USD5.4 million. That much more modestly budgeted Christmas movie has already nearly doubled its USD10 million production budget in two weeks. Fourth place went to A24’s Hugh Grant horror Heretic, with USD5.2 million, bumping its total gross to USD20.4 million.
Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot rounded out the top five in its eighth weekend in theatres with an additional USD4.3 million. The animated film surpassed USD300 million worldwide.
This weekend is a bit of a stop-over before the Thanksgiving tentpoles arrive. Next week, Wicked and Gladiator II face off in theatres with Moana 2, which also stars Johnson.
Gladiator II also got a bit of a head start internationally, where it opened in 63 markets this weekend to gross USD87 million.
That’s a record for filmmaker Ridley Scott and for an R-rated international release from Paramount.
Senior media analyst for Comscore Paul Dergarabedian said that the Red One is helping set into motion a momentum leading into the Thanksgiving corridor.
The upcoming releases, he said, “will finally bring some excitement to what has been a somewhat quiet post-Labour Day moviegoing marketplace”.
Dergarabedian added that it could be “one of the biggest revenue generating Thanksgiving periods in box office history”. – Lindsey Bahr
