Despite not achieving an outstanding success, ‘Red One’ managed to leave ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ behind at the U.S. box office, dethroning it after three weeks at the top (via ComicBook).
Amazon MGM’s Christmas feature, which saw release on November 15, earned about $11 million on Friday with Thursday’s revenues included. Now, it is expected to make around $30 million over the weekend.
Results are decent though not quite enough given the film’s production budget of over $250 million. Being the only major release this week, it still has a chance to perform well overseas.
Critics have largely given ‘Red One’ negative reviews so far, resulting in a 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Audience reaction has been better, recently earning the film an A- CinemaScore.
The holiday movie starred Dwayne Johnson as a North Pole security agent teaming up with a skilled bounty hunter, played by Chris Evans, to rescue J.K. Simmons’ Santa Claus from unknown kidnappers.
Johnson also served as a producer for the project and was the one who pushed for an IMAX release after seeing Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer.’
“I watch ‘Oppenheimer.’ It was amazing, but I was thinking: ‘Holy shit. ‘Red One’ on this screen and with this technology could be game over,’” he recently shared. “I remember texting [director Jake Kasdan] a picture of my bare chest and a picture of the screen and we realized how cool [IMAX] would be.”
The cast included Lucy Liu, Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt, Kristofer Hivju, Nick Kroll, and Wesley Kimmel.
