‘Red One’ Will Be a Small Appetizer for Theaters to the Box Office Feast Ahead

Amazon MGM is bringing big spectacle to theaters this weekend with the Christmas action film “Red One” starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans. But box office projections point to the film being only a small appetizer before the feast that Universal’s “Wicked” and Paramount’s “Gladiator II” will bring next weekend.

The 2024 domestic box office is running 12% behind the pace of last year, but that deficit likely will be narrowed thanks to next weekend’s pair of big releases, combined with the Thanksgiving debut of “Moana 2,” with the Disney film currently projected for a $135 million extended launch, which could be the biggest five-day opening ever.

“In April 2023, theaters got a huge lead-in to the summer season with ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie,'” said Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “The films coming out in the latter half of November will have the same effect for a holiday season that is going to have a wider range of films on offer than last year.”

Current box office projections have “Red One” earning an opening weekend of only $30-34 million, which will be a welcome bump for theaters after relying on holdover grosses from “Venom: The Last Dance” and modicums of support from niche films like “Heretic.”

But Amazon MGM spent big on this film with a reported budget of at least $250 million before marketing costs. And as TheWrap first reported, “Red One” faced a litany of mismanagement issues during its production, as well as frequent tardiness by Johnson that sometimes required the production to shoot around him.

For the most part, Amazon MGM’s theatrical output since last year’s merger has consisted of low-to-mid-tier budget films like Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” and Zoe Kravitz’s “Blink Twice” films that insiders at the studio have told TheWrap were considered successes if they made back their production budgets theatrically as they could then be used to attract new subscribers to Prime Video.

But “Red One” is facing very long odds to reach that mark, having collected just $26.6 million from 75 overseas markets last weekend. By comparison, “Venom: The Last Dance” made $33 million in its third weekend of international release.

Pre-release buzz isn’t helping, as critics have largely given “Red One” a thumbs down with a 30% score on Rotten Tomatoes. While Johnson’s fanbase may turn out, it would take extremely strong buzz for it to withstand the competition from “Wicked” and “Gladiator II,” which are currently tracking for opening weekends of $85 million and $65 million respectively.

That’s why this weekend will be one of momentum-building for exhibitors, who are banking on this Thanksgiving season being dramatically more robust than the last two years when no films were around to make up for Disney’s “Strange World” and “Wish” flopping with audiences.

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