The very expensive but typically priced Christmas package starring Dwayne Johnson, over $200 million Red started its box office journey last night with a total of previews $3.7 million. Note that the figure also includes funds from a special Sunday screening. The film has been stuck on tracking for a while with a $30 million – $35 million projection for the opening frame.

At that level, it would be the biggest opening ever for a feature film production from a streamer, surpassing Apple Original Films. Killers of the Flower Moon ($23.2 million) and not including Amazon’s release of then newly acquired MGM’s Confession of Faith III ($58.3 million). Red was originally intended as a straight Prime Video release before Amazon MGM pivoted to theatrical following solid test scores.

Regarding sample compositions, Red is above Elementary ($2.4 million previews, $29.6 million opening)IF ($1.75 million previews, 3 days $33.7 million) and The wild robot ($1.95 million, 3 days $35.7 million). Note that when it comes to non-IP films opening between $30 million and $40 million, there have only been four post-Covid: Bullet train ($30 million), M3GAN ($30.4 million), The lost city ($30.4 million) and IF ($33.7 million). As far as non-IP films debuting post-Covid between $40 million and $50 million, there’s only Jordan Peele’s No ($44.3 million).

There’s a lot to unpack here this weekend Redwhich was greenlit by Amazon MGM head Jennifer Salke and led by Head of Film Production and Development Julie Rapaport, is expected to gross just $35 million when it opens in the United States, give or take. Hopefully the film can perform better as there hasn’t been a major production on the market since October 25th Venom: The Last Dance opened to $51 million.

For a traditional major film studio, Red, with the domestic opening expected, it’s a black eye; look what Warner Bros Discovery (market cap: $22.8 billion) had to endure with a $100 million loss on the nearly $200 million priced +PA Joker: Folie a Deuxwhich topped the charts with $206.3 million worldwide. But for Amazon (market cap: $2.1 trillion), the costs are… Red is a rounding error. Amazon MGM defends monetization Red will be fully realized over time in the way it also powers other parts of the retail conglom’s business and Prime service. That’s a tough pill for traditional movie studios, even those with streaming services, to swallow. But unfortunately, all of Apple’s blunders with its $200 million box office productions are causing the tech company to rethink its film strategy. More about everything later. The hope for Amazon for this Christmas movie is that it will remain on the service for generations to come as it continues to build its library. Snoepgoedlaan was already available for Prime, and these titles, ala those from Netflix Christmas chronicles, appear in menus every holiday period.

The reviews are terrible with 34% Rotten on the Seven Bucks Production film, about the kidnapping of Santa Claus (JK Simmons) and his rescue by his head of security (Johnson), who gets help from an underground dark web hacker ( Evans). Kiernan Shipka and Lucy Liu also star in this reteam between Johnson and Jumanji director Jake Kasdan. Bad reviews are part of the story of a Johnson film, which historically strives to please the masses over critics, for example recent RT scores on Johnson films such as Disaster (51%), San Andreas (48%) and Black Adam (39%). Johnson has proven stronger in his CinemaScores, for example San Andreas And Disaster both received an A-, and Black Adam a B+.

Red, obviously has full control over all Imax and PLF screens.

Al, Red, through Amazon MGM Studios’ international output deal with Warner Bros, has earned $36 million to date in 75 offshore territories. That’s not great. But keep in mind that Christmas is not celebrated everywhere in the world.

The rest of the week: