Red One’s Thursday Night previews sled in with $3.7 million

The expensive price tag on Dwayne Johnson’s Red One came out to over $200 million, which is actually not unusual for the superstar’s mega-budget movies. Deadline is reporting that the Christmas adventure movie is on track to see a $35 million opening this weekend as the early Thursday night previews totaled in at $3.7 million. Our own Chris Bumbray was not impressed with the film as he said in his review, “Red One is the very definition of a streaming movie. While it’s getting a theatrical release, it seems tailor-made as a movie meant to please the algorithm and audiences looking for an easily digestible family action film they can break up in pieces.”

Deadline also made sure to note that this figure also includes money made from a Sunday special screening. The Santa rescue caper has been sitting still on tracking for a good amount time with a $30 million to a $35 million projection. As this movie was originally intended to be a streaming-only film, these projected numbers would be the biggest opening ever posted for a feature production from a streaming service, besting Apple Original Film’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which opened with $23.2M. The initial plan for Red One was to release the film on Prime Video. However, audience test scores were so good that it prompted Amazon MGM to give it a theatrical run.

That preview test screening seems to be the last positive consensus it could bask in as the movie was getting early bad buzz and the film currently sits with a 34% on Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score still pending. Chris Bumbray also noted, “Indeed, there’s pretty much nothing anyone does in Red One that hasn’t been done a lot better elsewhere. Heck, if you want to see a really badass Christmas action flick, look no further than Violent Night. Red One is really only worthwhile if you’re desperate for some inoffensive entertainment for the kids, but otherwise this is just a big old lump of coal.”

Red One also runs unopposed this weekend with its only competition being releases of the past few weeks including Tom Hardy’s current box office champion, Venom: The Last Dance, another Christmas film, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and Hugh Grant’s villainous turn in the horror film, Heretic.