Weekend Box Office: RED ONE Rides to $34M Domestic Debut

1. Red One
Amazon/MGM | NEW
$34M Domestic Opening Weekend
$84M Global Cume

Dwayne Johnson’s new family comedy Red One looks destined to put studio Amazon/MGM in the red as it opened to a sluggish $34M from 4,032 screens for a PSA of $8,451. It may not be the blockbuster start many anticipated when the film was first announced, but it did perform comfortably above our own pre-release tracking in the $20 – $30M range. Overall box office was down over -36% compared to this frame in 2023 when The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes was driving the market.

Here’s how the 3-Day looked, including $3.7M in Thursday previews…

• Friday – $10.9M
• Saturday – $13.2M
• Sunday – $9.9M

Here’s how demographics looked…

• 48% White
• 24% Hispanic
• 12% AA
• 11% Asian
• 5% NatAm/Other

Audiences were relatively even at 54% male/48% female, with the age ranges also spread across-the-board indicating four-quadrant appeal…

• 10% 13-17 years old
• 20% 18-24 years old
• 19% 25-34 years old
• 17% 35-44 years old
• 14% 45-54 years old
• 20% 55+ years old

While it opened on the ahead of our highest-end forecast, Red One still represents one of the lowest recent debuts for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Let’s compare to Johnson’s other lead vehicles from the past 7-years…

• Black Adam (2022) – $67M opening/$168.2M domestic cume
• Hobbs & Shaw (2019) – $60M opening/$173.9M domestic cume
• Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) – $59.2M opening/$316.8M domestic cume
• Rampage (2018) – $35.7M opening/$101M domestic cume
• Jungle Cruise (2021) – $35M opening/$116.9M domestic cume
• Red One (2024) – $34M opening
• Skyscraper (2018) – $24.9M opening/$68.4M domestic cume

According to Deadline, Red One was originally intended as a direct-to-streaming product ala Johnson’s Netflix action film Red Notice, but Amazon decided to pivot towards a theatrical launch -after promising test audience scores- partly in order to recoup heavy marketing costs. Indeed, while critics raked the movie over the naughty coals (33% on Rotten Tomatoes), the audience score is at 88% while CinemaScore is an “A-” (same as Rampage and better than Black Adam and Skyscraper‘s B+). General audiences gave the picture 78% in the top 2 boxes, while kids gave it 91%.

Johnson’s movies often over-index internationally, but that hasn’t been the case as the movie added $14.7M in its second overseas frame on 14,783 screens in 75 markets. That’s a -40% drop from last weekend (-43% including China), with the international running cume at $50M. The film took in $2.6M from IMAX screens domestically, having amassed $4.6M WW on the large format despite much hype from Johnson about Red One needing to be seen this way. Top 3 current overseas territories are the UK ($6M), Mexico ($4.5M), and Germany ($3.1M).

Ultimately the “need-to-see” factor wasn’t there for Red One like it was on Johnson and director Jake Kasdan’s previous two Jumanji films, which both took on Star Wars movies yet earned smashingly. Red One had this weekend all to itself, and will most certainly have its antlers snapped by the perfect storm of Wicked/Gladiator II/Moana 2.

One bright spot is audiences seem to appreciate it, and that might sustain word of mouth through the season paving the way for a splashy streaming debut. The Christmas trappings may also ensure it becomes a valuable library title the same way The Polar Express or Elf still are for Warner Bros. For what it’s worth, Red One is being considered the best opening ever for a movie originating from a streamer, outshining Apple’s Killers of the Flower Moon debut ($23.2M).

Other Notable Performances

Arguably, the bigger news this weekend was the overseas opening of Paramount Pictures’ Gladiator II, which took in $87M across 63 markets ahead of its U.S., Canada, and China bow on November 22. This represents Paramount’s biggest international R-rated opening and director Ridley Scott’s most sizable international debut. The top 3 territories were the UK ($11.4M), France ($10.3M), and Spain ($5.6M). This marks the second biggest Spain release of 2024 behind Inside Out 2. IMAX is reporting that $7M of that international debut came from 453 IMAX screens, better than Red One. Our Long Range Forecast has Gladiator II opening domestically in the $60M-$80M range.

Filipino drama Hello, Love, Again broke into the top ten in its North American debut, bringing in $2.41M from 248 screens for an impressive $9,722 per-screen average. It marks both the highest-grossing opening weekend and widest release of a Filipino film in the North American market, an achievement built on the success of its predecessor, 2019’s Hello, Love, Goodbye. “Hello, Love, Again has made history as the highest-grossing film from the Philippines, with an unprecedented cinema rollout across North America, positioning it to become the highest-grossing Filipino film ever released in the region,” said Evan Saxon, President and Head of International Distribution at Abramorama, via press release. “Abramorama is proud to partner with ABS-CBN on this landmark release. Led by Joe Garel, who developed a data-driven distribution strategy, we achieved impressive grosses and per-screen averages, while highlighting to our exhibition partners the power of a vibrant audience they may have underestimated. This success underscores the immense potential for expanding cinema’s audiences through multicultural and event-driven content.”

DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot came close to passing the $300M mark worldwide at $298.6M, putting it on par with the studio’s 2012 film Rise of the Guardians i.e. the 26th highest-grossing DreamWorks animated film overall globally.

Sony’s Marvel-Verse sequel Venom: The Last Dance managed to surpassed the international lifetime of Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($293.3 million) with $308.5M after raking in $17.3M this from from 14,850+ screens in 66 markets. Nearly a third of that came entirely from China ($90.3M). The global cume now stands at $436.1M.

Sunday’s Studio Weekend Estimates | Weekend 46 – 2024
Total 3-Day Domestic Estimates: $73,620,586M | (-36.3% vs 2023)