Box Office Report: Red Alert

Christmas is coming, and the big movie of this past weekend is a terrifying reminder of that. Red One, starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans, is an Amazon film that its leading man has been hyping as the first in an impending festive franchise since production began. Johnson reportedly earned an eye-watering $50 million for this role, making him the highest-paid actor for a single part until Robert Downey Jr. decided to rejoin the MCU and get his hands on a new private jet. The budget for Red One is somewhere between $200 and 250 million. For context, that’s about the same price, not adjusted for inflation, as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and The Lion King (2019.) Hopes were high for this, although the fact that they didn’t lift the review embargo until the middle of election results night suggests a distinct lack of hope in the final product. Reviews were bad but in its opening weekend, it did okay?

The film made just over $34 million from 4,032 theatres. That’s solid in the post-lockdown, post-strike era of the box office. For a Johnson film, it otherwise would be a sign of his A-Lister prowess. He’s good at getting those weird non-IP mid-budget films like Skyscraper into the black. But again, Red One cost way more than that did. Dwayne doesn’t come cheap these days. Is the investment worth it? Well, this is also an Amazon film so they’ll see this as part of a wider strategy to get people to watch it at home over Christmas.

Every other release this weekend was a limited one. As we head into December, things are going to get very crowded. For now, this is peacetime. At number eight is Hello, Love, Again, a romantic drama from the Philippines starring one of the biggest actresses in that region, Kathryn Bernardo. This is a sequel to 2019’s Hello, Love, Goodbye, which was one of the highest-grossing Filipino films ever made. You don’t often see Filipino films at the North American box office but this one did very well, earning $2.32 million from only 248 locations.

Also in indie release news: a delightfully named Japanese animated film called Ghost Cat Anzu, about a cat who talks like a human and works as a masseuse, grossed $158,229 from 328 cinemas. The Indian film All We Imagine as Light, a prize winner at Cannes and a festival darling this awards season, made $51,000 from three theatres.

This coming week sees the smackdown battle between Gladiator II and Wicked. Gladi-witches? Glicked? Nah, doesn’t work.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.