Despite having delivered the country’s number one film this weekend, the mood at Amazon MGM Studios might be tense right now, considering the circumstances. Red One, the new Christmas-themed action-adventure film starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans, is estimated to have grossed around $34 million in its opening weekend at the domestic box office. While this is an improvement over the $30 million projections that the movie was chained to heading into the weekend, there’s the nagging issue of its allegedly high production budget. Red One reportedly cost $250 million to produce (and many millions more to market across the world), and it basically has one week to make the magic happen.
Next weekend, the domestic box office will witness the clash of the year, with Gladiator II and Wicked dueling each other for the top spot. Red One will likely be sent to number three, but the key to its survival rests in the hands of the audience. The movie might have received poor reviews — it holds a “rotten” 33% rating on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes — but it was embraced by audiences, who awarded it an encouraging A- CinemaScore. Movies released at this time of the year tend to last the holiday season, and director Jake Kasdan and the folks over at Amazon would certainly hope that families keep showing up for the movie across the next few weeks. Johnson needn’t worry — he has Moana 2 to look forward to this month.
Red One isn’t going to have the same luxury that Venom: The Last Dance has been enjoying for the past three weeks. Faced with no competition, the superhero film managed to top the weekend charts thrice in a row, before finally slipping to number two in its fourth frame. Venom: The Last Dance generated around $7.3 million this weekend, taking its running domestic total past the $125 million mark. The film has a shot at concluding its domestic run with over $150 million, but there’s no way it’s going to match the identical $213 million lifetime hauls of its two predecessors, Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
This Is the Calm Before the ‘Gladiator II’ and ‘Wicked’ Storm
The third spot saw a close contest between a couple of holdover releases targeted at entirely different demographics. While the faith-based family film The Best Christmas Pageant Ever grossed an estimated $5.4 million this weekend, the horror film Heretic generated $5.17 million. Both films have grossed a similar amount in 10 days of release — while The Best Christmas Pageant Ever has so far generated a hair under $20 million domestically, Heretic passed the $20 million milestone this weekend.
The animated hit The Wild Robot defeated the drama-thriller Conclave to claim the number five spot this weekend. Despite having played in theaters for around two months, The Wild Robot generated $4.3 million and took its running domestic total to nearly $140 million. Conclave, on the other hand, has been proving that adult audiences shouldn’t be overlooked, especially at this time of the year. The Oscar favorite has now made over $25 million worldwide.
via Collider