‘Red One’ Clears $3.7M Previews: Dwayne Johnson & Chris Evans $200M+ Production Eyes $35M Opening – Friday AM Box Office

The very expensive, but typically priced, Dwayne Johnson $200M+ Christmas package Red One began its weekend journey last night with previews totaling $3.7M. Note that 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.

There’s a lot unpack here this weekend as this movie, which was greenlit by Amazon Studios Head Jennifer Salke, and shepherded by Head of Film Creative and Strategy Julie Rapaport, is only expected to post $35M in its opening stateside, give or take. Hopefully, the movie can overperform given that there hasn’t been a big production in the marketplace since Oct. 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. Read, the $23.4 billion Warner Bros Discovery has to endure a $100M loss on the near $200M priced Joker: Folie a Deux which fell on its face with $206.3M. But for the $2.1 trillion Amazon, the cost of Red One is a rounding error. Amazon MGM Studios defends that monetization of 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 their $200M production, 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 Seven Bucks Production movie about Santa Clause’s (JK Simmons) kidnapping, and 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. But that’s par for the course on a Johnson movie which historically looks to please masses over critics, i.e. recent RT scores on Johnson fare includes Rampage (51%), San Andreas (48%) and Black Adam (39%). Johnson has proven stronger in his CinemaScores, i.e. San Andreas and Rampage both received A-s, 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 $27M+ in 75 offshore territories. That’s not amazing. But keep in mind, Christmas isn’t celebrated everywhere in the world.