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It’s been a great weekend at the domestic box office, with two major 2024 releases finally making their debut. These are the highly anticipated Broadway musical adaption Wicked, and Ridley Scott’s long-awaited sequel Gladiator 2. But for all their show-stopping and cinematic glory, they aren’t the only movies playing this weekend.
Alongside these two movies is another blockbuster that has entered its second week in theaters and that is Red One, the holiday action flick starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Despite the overwhelmingly positive fan reaction from those who have already seen the movie, Red One is struggling at the box office, to the point where it has set a new (though unenviable) record for its leading man.
The week two figures for Red One at the box office show the biggest week-over-week drop for The Rock since the iconic misfire that was Black Adam. Needless to say, the hierarchy of holiday movie power won’t be changing anytime soon.
Over the three-day weekend, Red One is set to earn around $13 million according to Deadline, which will be a 59 percent drop off from its debut weekend where it took in $31 million. So while the movie is looking to cross that $50 million milestone domestically, it still has a huge way to go before it makes back that history-making, eyebrow-raising budget which is said to have exceeded $250 million (that’s a lot of Santa hats). The good news is that its global take has helped significantly, and in total Red One has made $117 million so far.
In other box office news, Wicked topped the haul this weekend at the domestic box office, making an estimated $114 million during its opening days. Trailing behind by a significant margin was Gladiator 2 which opened in the United States to a $55 million take. Fortunately, the Ridley Scott sequel to the 2000 original already opened in some international markets last week, so its total earnings are already over $220 million.
While things in the Red One camp are looking rocky, it’s not game over just yet. As we mentioned previously, the sentiment from those who have actually seen the movie couldn’t be better to the point where it has maintained an audience score on Rotten Tomatoes of over 90 percent. Perhaps this positive feedback and word of mouth could give the film more legs as we approach Thanksgiving and the rest of the holiday season.
If you aren’t familiar with what Red One is about then trust us, you’re not alone. It’s not a premise that you would guess just from hearing the name. Red One tells the story of Santa’s assistant who is tasked with locating the big man after he’s kidnapped, but to reach him he’s forced to recruit a “level four naughty lister” to help get the job done.
Yes, that’s what the movie calls him. This deviant is played by Chris Evans, adding to the movie’s A-lister clad cast that also includes J.K. Simmons, Kiernan Shipka and Lucy Liu. If you’re looking for a holiday film that’s a little different, then Red One might be right for you. There are a lot of people who have seen it that would say it is, they just happen not to be the critics.