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SATURDAY AM: “Treat them the same way you treat us! How dare you?!” are some of the screams I’ve been getting from traditional major studios when it comes to the chilly box office performance of the Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans $200M Christmas action movie Red One. (“No! It’s $250M!” exclaims one ex-Amazon-er with knowledge). And at an opening of $30M, after a $10.9M Friday, we can’t ignore the fact that we’ve seen better from the Rock, as far as his solo non-Fast & Furious projects go.
And, damn, if this isn’t a high budget. That’s the biggest problem here with Red One overall. However, that’s what you get when you do business with the industrial complex that is the Rock. You can cry tardiness, entourages, water bottles, schedules, studio execs asleep at the wheel and an exorbitant amount of jelly beans in Rock’s trailer — it doesn’t matter. Capisce. This is what it costs to get into business with Johnson, and the only ones who are bold enough to invest in this endeavor are streamers like Netflix with Red Notice and Amazon MGM Studios here with Red One. The Rock has yet to scale down the budget of one of his tentpoles.
There’s some Christmas hope today that family audiences could lift Red One higher — how high, maybe not much. The movie did receive an A- CinemaScore last night (better than Black Adam and Skyscraper‘s B+ and the same as Rampage) and 88% on Rotten Tomatoes from audiences (same as Black Adam).
First, to placate the irate, traditional model studio brass who want to put Red One side-by-side with the performance of Joker: Folie a Deux, let’s recognize the fact here that this opening for Red One is on par with the lower-end of Johnson’s original IP, one of those examples being Skyscraper ($130M production cost yielding $24.9M domestic opening, $68.4M domestic final, worldwide was $304.8M booted by $98M+ from China). There’s an argument to be made that the movie in its execution is more like a lightweight Lethal Weapon for audiences than a family film, which is why we’re not seeing a rush from the latter audience.
In the same breath, Red One is arguably the best opening for a movie hatched by a streamer, besting Apple’s Killers of the Flower Moon ($23.2M) and it’s in the vicinity of where Christmas live-action movies open. Don’t knock the Rock’s star power: He’s arguably the first Hollywood star to have two No. 1 openings in a given month from two different films; the expectation is that Disney’s Moana 2 will soar to a $135M 5-day over Thanksgiving.
Now this is where the old studios of yore (even those with streaming services) can’t handle the truth, and that is any loss from Red One won’t rock Amazon in the same way that it tips the entertainment content divisions of Lionsgate, Warner Bros Discovery, Disney, etc. “Amazon is place where there’s no stakes” says one industry source with knowledge of the nuts and bolts of the shopping site studio; meaning failure doesn’t hit them in the gut on a Monday morning the same way like it does for a studio in Universal City, Burbank or on Melrose Ave.
Amazon claims that the benefits of Red One will be realized down the road in other ways. That’s what they said about their hundred million dollar pick-up of Ben Affleck’s Air and we have yet to get the financial report from Amazon on the uptick in sales on Nikes, or the surge in sales in short tennis dresses from the Zendaya movie Challengers. Here’s what I will tell you: when Red One hits Prime, the rumor is before Christmas (something of a 30-day theatrical window here), it will ultimately have ads sold against it, likely in its second window the following year. This past fall, Amazon MGM Studios started selling movies at MIP. Essentially, there’s a downstream.
Sources in the streaming sphere and Zen-minded talent reps tell me that despite the lackluster result here for Red One, it’s a win for Amazon. Golly gosh, how? This is a movie originally built for streaming, so its exorbitant costs were already accounted for by Amazon via the Prime service. Theatrical is gravy, and was the right move for Amazon MGM Studios to do. Theatrical launches have shown that movies have longer legs on streaming services. Furthermore, the rationale behind Amazon MGM Studios’ pivot to theatrical in this case hinged on a big screen release covering this movie’s marketing cost (which we hear is $100M global). Success for Amazon MGM, Netflix and Apple is defined differently from the traditional motion picture studios. Old guard, rather than snipe at rival studios, let’s deal with the fact that fewer people are going to the movies post-Covid, and in a new Trump era, the entertainment industry is competing with the outside world’s perception of Hollywood and movies.
Let’s face it: Christmas action movies have always gotten a bad rap, whether it’s Polar Express or Jingle All The Way. Polar Express with its near $170M production cost, proved the test of time and remains a lucrative library holiday title for Warner Bros in addition to Christmas Vacation and Christmas Story. Most of these movies are chopped up by critics and have bloated budgets which are then deemed immediate box office failures. However, such titles can reap tens of millions of dollars in their theatrical afterlife for decades, but again, Amazon, that hinges on the wide distribution of these movies outside a studio’s own streaming service. How much love Red One receives down the road is anybody’s guess, however, anecdotally I will say they should have played it up more for laughs with one-liners; that would potentially propel it to endure the test of time ala Christmas Story with “You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!”
Every weekend in November can be bountiful at the box office, however, this one is quite low for all titles, around $69M. Exhibition doesn’t need Amazon MGM Studios to retrench on their theatrical plans due to a less than vibrant result here on Red One, especially after Apple tried and failed with their streaming-to-theatrical pivots of their $200M+ features. However, as I emphasized during the tanking of Argylle: Tech companies do look at bottom lines. Apple’s film division is re-thinking its costs, and Amazon at one point realized just after Jennifer Salke took the content reigns that the gameplan of low to mid-budget arthouse prestige fare ala The Aeronauts, Neon Demon, Beautiful Boy, etc was just sending subscribers to Prime. It doesn’t help the theatrical ecosystem if these new big players fail with underripe big budget product and go home. Also, the underperformance of big budget original IP will certainly weigh on the minds of any development executive when approaching another project.
So, once again, is Red One a success or a failure for Amazon MGM Studios?
That depends on whether I get a press release on Monday morning that the studio is fully committing to the next $250M Dwayne Johnson movie.
It’s Deadline Contenders today, so y’all come on down to the DGA Theater on Sunset, ya hear? We’ll have more box office updates later.
FRIDAY MIDDAY: It will come down to Saturday to put the Dwayne Johnson-Chris Evans Amazon MGM Studios Christmas action movie Red One north of $30 million. Estimates we hear today put this family feature at close to $12M today and $30M-$33M over three days.
That three-day today would be above such Christmas movies as 2004’s The Polar Express ($23.3M opening, $170M production cost, final domestic $189.5M), in the league of the Will Ferrell comedy Elf ($32.1M opening, $33M production cost, $178M domestic box office) and well above 2007’s Fred Claus ($18.5M opening, $100M production cost, $72M domestic) and the 1996 Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner Jingle All the Way ($12.1M opening, $75 production cost, $60.5M domestic), the latter of which was deemed a seismic bomb back in its day. All are unadjusted for inflation.
According to social media analytics corp RelishMix, Red One‘s online marketing push is being fueled by Johnson’s Instagram videos, with 227.7M views off his 557.7M fans. Other social media stars include Chris Evan at 17.9M, Kiernan Shipka with 7.1M, Lucy Liu at 6.3 and Kristofer Hivju at 3.2M.
However, the social media reach sans cast is only 258.2M, which is ahead of Paramount’s IF (193.9M followers) but around the same as The Fall Guy. That original action movie with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt posted a $10.4M opening day and $27.7M three-day total in March.
Among the positive word of mouth, per RelishMix: “Some viewers and fans who have attended advance screenings sharing their enthusiasm for the movie. The focus on holiday mythology and creatures is exciting many, with comments like, ‘I’m happy for a Christmas Movie that builds on mythology!’ and, ‘To be honest this looks quite fun to watch. The giant snow man fights is what brought me here.’ The breezy tone and fun atmosphere is also drawing in viewers, with comments including, ‘I see this as a fun watch for the holidays! something to laugh & relax with,’ and, ‘Saw this tonight. Loved it from beginning to end. It was just all kinds of fun.’
Among the negative chatter, the complaint is over the VFX: “This movie make no sense … so many fakes in cgi,” and “CGI mess with no heart or magic.”
FRIDAY AM: The very expensive but typically priced $200 million-plus Christmas package Red One starring Dwayne Johnson 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 originally was 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 greenlighted 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 would be a black eye with its expected domestic opening; 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 à 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 Video 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 rethinking 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. Last year’s Candy Cane Lane already was watchable for Prime, and these titles, a la 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 (J.K. Simmons) and his rescue by his head of security (Johnson), who gets help from an underground dark web hacker (Evans). 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 such Johnson fare as Rampage (51%), San Andreas (48%) and Black Adam (39%). Johnson has proved stronger in his CinemaScores; San Andreas and Rampage both received an A-, for example, and Black Adam got 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:
