‘Red One’ With Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans Sees $3.7M Previews

The very expensive but typically priced Dwayne Johnson-starring, $200 million-plus Christmas package Red One began its box office journey last night with previews totaling $3.7 million. Note that the figure also includes monies from a Sunday special screening. The movie has been sitting still on tracking for quite some time with a $30M-$35M projection for its opening frame.

At that level, it would be the biggest opening ever posted for a feature production from a streamer, besting Apple Original Films’ Killers of the Flower Moon ($23.2M) and not counting Amazon’s release of then-newly acquired MGM’s Creed III ($58.3M). Red One was originally conceived as a straight-to-service Prime Video release before Amazon MGM pivoted to theatrical following solid test scores.

In regards to preview comps, Red One is above Elemental ($2.4M previews, $29.6M opening), IF ($1.75M previews, 3-day $33.7M) and The Wild Robot ($1.95M, 3-day $35.7M). Note, when it comes to non-IP movies opening between $30M-$40M, there have only been four post-Covid: Bullet Train ($30M), M3GAN ($30.4M), The Lost City ($30.4M) and IF ($33.7M). In regards to non-IP movies debuting to $40M-$50M post-Covid, there is just Jordan Peele’s Nope ($44.3M).

There’s a lot to unpack here this weekend as Red One, which was greenlit by Amazon MGM head Jennifer Salke and shepherded by Film Production and Development head Julie Rapaport, is only expected to post $35M in its opening stateside, give or take. Hopefully, the movie can overperform given there hasn’t been a big production in the marketplace since October 25, when Venom: The Last Dance opened to $51M.

For a traditional major motion picture studio, Red One, with its expected domestic opening, is a black eye; look at what Warner Bros Discovery (market cap: $22.8 billion) had to endure with a $100M loss on the near-$200M-priced + PA Joker: Folie a Deux, which fell on its face with $206.3M worldwide. But for Amazon (market cap: $2.1 trillion), the cost of Red One is a rounding error. Amazon MGM defends that monetization on Red One will be fully realized down the road in how it triggers other parts of the shopping conglom’s business and the Prime service as well. That’s a hard pill for traditional motion picture studios, even those with streaming services, to swallow. But alas, all those box office blunders from Apple with its $200M productions has that tech company re-thinking its movie strategy. More on everything later. The hope for Amazon on this Christmas movie is that it will last for generations to come on the service as it continues to build its library. Candy Cane Lane was already watchable for Prime, and these titles, ala Netflix’s Christmas Chronicles, pop back up in menus each holiday season.

Reviews are awful at 34% Rotten on the Seven Bucks Production movie, about the kidnapping of Santa Claus (JK Simmons) and his rescue by his head of security (Johnson), who gets help from an underground dark web hacker (Evans). Kiernan Shipka and Lucy Liu also co-star in this reteam between Johnson and Jumanji director Jake Kasdan. Bad reviews are par for the course on a Johnson movie, which historically look to please masses over critics, e.g., recent RT scores on Johnson fare like Rampage (51%), San Andreas (48%) and Black Adam (39%). Johnson has proven stronger in his CinemaScores, e.g., San Andreas and Rampage both received an A-, and Black Adam a B+.

Red One, of course, has the full command of all Imax and PLF screens.

Already, Red One, via Amazon MGM Studios‘ international output deal with Warner Bros, has made $36M to date in 75 offshore territories. That’s not amazing. But keep in mind, Christmas isn’t celebrated everywhere in the world.

The rest of the week: