It’s Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans to the rescue.
That’s the hope in any case as their recent Christmas movie, Red One, opens across North America this weekend after a tricky fall. Tracking suggests the action-adventure movie will unpack a domestic debut within the $30 million to $35 million range for Amazon MGM Studios before having fun with a protracted run through the year-end holidays (fingers crossed).
Nonetheless, there will probably be loads of chatter in regards to the movie’s box office performance considering it cost $250 million to make. A significant legacy studio in the identical situation would come under intense scrutiny if a movie carrying that price tag opened to those numbers, but Amazon insists its business model is entirely different and fueled by subscribers, and not only box office. It also hopes to launch a brand new film franchise.
And exhibitors are actually completely happy to play the primary proper Christmas movie since before the pandemic when The Grinch opened in 2018, not to say a movie with such high profile talent.
Rated PG-13, the unique story follows what happens when Santa Claus — whose code name is “Red One” — is kidnapped and the North Pole’s head of security (Johnson) must team up with the world’s most infamous bounty hunter (Evans) in what Amazon MGM describes as a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to avoid wasting Christmas.
Directed by Jake Kasdan from a screenplay by Chris Morgan and a story by Hiram Garcia, Red One also stars Lucy Liu, Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt, Kristofer Hivju, Nick Kroll, Wesley Kimmel and J.K. Simmons. It’s rated PG-13 within the U.S, where reviews haven’t been kind.
Red One is the primary in a series of year-end tentpoles preparing to open and, if all goes well, put the box office back on the good list after a tricky fall as a result of lack of product. On Nov. 22, Universal’s Wicked and Paramount’s Gladiator II each debut, followed by Walt Disney Animation’s Moana 2 on Nov. 27. (Many have dubbed the high-profile corridor “Moanapocalypse” or “Glicked.)
Amazon MGM has waged a full-fledged marketing campaign for Red One, including promoting on major sporting events, coordinating an ambitious screening series and dispatching talent to points across the globe.
The studio also did a plenty of local promotions to achieve multicultural audiences. Amazon collaborated with It’s Boba Time, a well-liked AAPI-owned boba company, in all 88 of their locations for 2 weeks and created a custom Red One-themed drink called the “Missing Santa.” The studio partnered with five local Black-owned coffee shops and bakeries to host free Red One drink giveaways to advertise the film during opening week. Locations included Hilltop in Los Angeles and Sip and Savor in Chicago. There have been also activations in 13 stores within the Los Angeles area with a well-liked retailer inside the Latine community, Curacao.
Warner Bros. Pictures is distributing the Seven Bucks production internationally, where it opened per week early to $28 million.
Amazon gave the greenlight to make Red One before it even bought MGM. Insiders say the film’s success will probably be based on global box office combined with the way it performs on Prime each this holiday season and for years to come back. Put one other way, the goal is for it to turn into a perennial holiday favorite.
