Red One May Not Be A Huge Box Office Hit, But Don’t Call It A Flop – SlashFilm

Looking at the numbers, it’s easy to argue that this movie makes way more sense in theaters than it would on streaming. “Some money is better than no money” would be another (admittedly somewhat reductive) way to look at it. Not only that, but with no other big movies coming out this past weekend, “Red One” was absolutely necessary to keep theaters afloat for a week before “Gladiator II” and “Wicked” bring the big bucks heading into Thanksgiving.

Not that Amazon put this in theaters out of the kindness of their hearts, but it certainly helped the overall box office picture out in what has been a down year thanks to a rough first half of 2024. “Red One” was originally supposed to go direct-to-streaming where it would have made no money back, save for any new Prime Video sign-ups. At this rate, it should at least make $200 million worldwide, which would recoup the reported marketing budget. (If theaters take approximately half of the earnings and the studio takes the other half, Amazon’s half would offset the amount the company spent on trailers, TV spots, billboards, etc.)

At the same time, the theatrical release has boosted the film’s profile greatly for its eventual streaming release. As we’ve seen time and time again, movies released in theaters do way better on streaming. “Madame Web” was a straight-up flop theatrically, but it shot right to the top of the charts on Netflix. Similarly, Disney’s “Encanto” was far from a hit in theaters largely thanks to pandemic circumstances, but then it became a monster hit on Disney+. That wouldn’t have happened if it had been dumped straight to streaming.

These big budget made-for-streaming movies that get released in theaters are weird beasts. We’re grading them on an emerging curve, one that is pretty far removed from the regular blockbuster curve. It’s messy, to put it mildly. Grading on that curve, “Red One” probably shouldn’t be framed as an outright flop, even if it’s far from a hit. It’s more complicated than many people are giving it credit for, and we spoke a little more about it on today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

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“Red One” is in theaters now.