Box office update: Red One on track for The Rock’s lowest opening since Skyscraper

Last Updated on November 19, 2024

Just as we predicted earlier this week, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s mega-budget Christmas action-comedy, Red One, is set for one of the star’s lowest debuts. While the $30 million Deadline is predicting isn’t quite as bad as the $25 million we called earlier this week, given the movie’s $250 million price tag, this has to be seen as an embarrassing failure for The Rock. When all is said and done, he hasn’t had a legitimate box office smash since Jumanji: The Next Level back in 2019.

The one glimmer of hope for Red One is the fact that the movie has a surprisingly excellent CinemaScore, with the A-minus rating suggesting those who are going to see the movie are actually enjoying it. While I slammed it in my review, even if the movie fails theatrically, it will likely be a solid hit once it hits streaming, with it set to debut at some unspecified date on Prime Video (it was originally designed as a streaming exclusive). Given the holiday theme and the poor box office showing, I’d expect it to drop on Prime Video sooner rather than later.

Ironically, Red One may not actually be all that big of a flop for Amazon-MGM when all is said and done, as Christmas movies typically have a long shelf life. Movies like Jingle All the Way and The Polar Express were branded as failures when they came out, only to eventually become perennial favourites. If anything, the only one who really suffers is The Rock, with the poor opening likely seen as another ding against his waning star power. However, his Moana 2 will likely be a smash hit when it comes out in a few weeks, and his A24 drama, The Smashing Machine, may give him a boost of credibility. It might just be that audiences are sick of this kind of fare coming from him, as Red One has little going for it to distinguish it from Red Notice, Jungle Cruise or Jumanji.

Did any of you reading this see Red One this weekend? Let us know what you thought in the comments!