The year 2024’s biggest box office successes have mostly been based on existing properties. Sadly, one of 2024’s biggest box office bombs was an original movie – but now it’s dominating streaming. It seems to have found a new life on Amazon Prime following its failed theatrical run.
It’s certainly interesting that this particular film didn’t perform that well in theaters. In fact, the movie’s budget is estimated to be between $200 to $250 million, while its actual worldwide gross was only $176.3 million. Additionally, the film had quite a few major stars attached, so the studios involved were no doubt hoping that would be enough to sell audiences on a new IP.
While moviegoers weren’t willing to support the film in theaters, however, the film has become the number one film on Amazon Prime at the time of this writing. It’s likely that because the movie is something of a family film, people felt it was more appropriate to watch at home than it was in theaters. Additionally, the film is centered around Christmas, so this time of year no doubt makes for a better time to watch this unique take on the beloved holiday.
The film, titled Red One, revolves around Dwayne Johnson as Callum Drift and Chris Evans as Jack O’Malley. Johnson’s character is the head of security at the North Pole while Evans’ role is that of a hacker. The two go on a mission together to find Santa Claus who has been kidnapped, and the bearded holiday mascot is played by none other than J. K. Simmons.
Although it did made a decent bit of money at the box office, it seems as though its budget was simply too large for an original IP movie like this. Otherwise, Red One would have likely succeeded in making back multiple times its budget at the box office, especially if there was a larger window before it would have hit streaming during the Christmas season.
Interestingly, the film does feature Amazon MGM Studios as a producer, so perhaps they expected it to do better on streaming all along. Nonetheless, it has received negative reviews to boot, so perhaps fans shouldn’t even expect so much as a streaming continuation to keep the story going. In any case, at least Red One is available for any family or subscribers looking for something different to watch this Christmas season.
Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any other updates regarding the newest streaming trends including those found on Amazon Prime as we have them. It’s unfortunate that this attempt to get a new franchise off the ground failed, but perhaps streaming will turn out to be a better home for Red One than the theatrical circuit.