November in 2024 can be described as backloaded at the box office. With Kelly Marcel's Venom: The Last Dance hitting theaters in late October and major studios giving it a good amount of runway (arguably an error in retrospect, given the movie's soft domestic debut), it's been a couple weeks since the big screen got a star-studded title with blockbuster aspirations. On Friday, the drought got satiated with the arrival of Jake Kasdan's Red One.
The new Christmas-themed action film starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans is not expected to have a long reign at the top of the box office, but you'll find it sitting in first place in the Top 10 below. Check out the numbers and then join me for analysis.
| TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Red One* | $34,073,449 | $34,073,449 | N/A | 4,032 |
| 2. Venom: The Last Dance | $7,355,000 | $127,600,000 | 1 | 3,421 |
| 3. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever | $5,400,000 | $19,952,121 | 3 | 3,020 |
| 4. Heretic | $5,167,153 | $20,436,947 | 2 | 3,230 |
| 5. The Wild Robot | $4,300,000 | $137,773,000 | 4 | 2,894 |
| 6. Smile 2 | $2,950,000 | $65,654,000 | 5 | 2,462 |
| 7. Conclave | $2,850,000 | $26,557,000 | 6 | 2,377 |
| 8. Hello, Love, Again* | $2,370,000 | $2,370,000 | N/A | 248 |
| 9. A Real Pain | $2,300,000 | $3,037,466 | 18 | 1,185 |
| 10. Anora | $1,839,000 | $10,500,198 | 7 | 1,500 |
Red One Makes $34 Million In Its Domestic Debut, But It's Massive Budget Is A Looming Concern
Looking at a calendar, one will note that we have not yet arrived at Thanksgiving yet, but Christmas is already in full swing on the big screen. Last week, Dallas Jenkins' family-centric comedy The Best Christmas Pageant Ever debuted in third place (following a close battle with Scott Beck and Bryan Woods' Heretic), and Red One is now the biggest movie in the United States and Canada. In both cases, the scheduling is likely preempting a digital release at the end of next month just in time for the actual holiday, but for now, audiences are being urged to feel festive early.
Playing in over 4,000 locations, per The Numbers, Red One made $34.1 million in its opening weekend – which is the eighteenth biggest domestic debut in 2024 between Chris Sanders' The Wild Robot ($35.8 million) and John Krasinski's IF ($33.7 million). The film got a jump start earlier this month in some foreign markets, and has earned $84.1 million worldwide to date.
The bad news is that the movie is going to make a lot more money than that to ultimately justify its budget, which, per The Wrap, was in the $200-250 million range. Red One is a very different title, but the box office circumstances are reminiscent of what happened with Ridley Scott's Napoleon almost exactly one year ago. With a budget reported to be as high as $200 million, the Joaquin Phoenix-led film ultimately left theaters having made $217.9 million globally – and it's worth noting that the box office competition the historical epic faced wasn't nearly as intense as what is ahead for the Dwayne Johnson/Chris Evans action comedy.
While the big Thanksgiving movies of 2023 included Francis Lawrence's The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes and Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn's Wish, late November this year has three massively hyped features arriving everywhere: Jon M. Chu's Wicked, Ridley Scott's Gladiator II and Dana Ledoux Miller, Jason Hand and David Derrick Jr.'s Moana 2. All three of those titles feel practically designed to steal away demographics from Red One, and it likely means that that the film will end November struggling to stay in the Top 5.
This certainly isn't the box office result that Dwayne Johnson was hoping for. While there was a time not too long ago when he was making two or three movies every year, Red One is Johnson's first time back on the big screen since Jaume Collet-Serra's Black Adam in 2022 – which is remembered as a disappointment critically and financially (this obviously doesn't count his super brief post-credits cameo in Louis Leterrier's Fast X). The star will likely get to revel in success later this month when the aforementioned Moana 2 arrives in theaters, as he reprises the role of Maui, but his live-action career appears to still be in repair mode.
The actor formerly known as The Rock's upcoming slate of movies is a mix of originals and sequels – including Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine, Jake Kasdan's Jumanji 4, and Thomas Kail's live-action Moana.
The Wild Robot Crosses $300 Million Worldwide
We'll have to wait and see what kind of legs Red One ultimately shows, but for now, we'll conclude this box office column celebrating the longevity of The Wild Robot. The movie has now spent eight weeks in theaters, having first arrived in wide release in late September, and in addition to sticking around in the Top 5 of the domestic chart, the animated hit made headlines this week by crossing $300 million worldwide.
That's a bar than only 18 movies have hit in 2024 thus far, and ticket sales have been relatively even between domestic and foreign markets (the movie has made $137.8 million in the United States and Canada and $170.7 million from everywhere else). The film only spent one weekend at #1, but it has finished in second place four times, including the final weekend of October.
Of course, The Wild Robot sticking around as long as it has at the box office can be largely attributed to its extreme quality – which has been near-universally appreciated. The animated feature earned raves from critics following its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (I gave it a four-and-a-half star review for CinemaBlend), and it's clear that audiences are loving it enough for repeat viewings.
Looking ahead, the box office world is anticipating one of the most exciting weekends of 2024 in just a few days, as there has been much hope that the simultaneous releases of Wicked and Gladiator II on Friday will inspire as much buzz as what we saw for Greta Gerwig's Barbie and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer (a.k.a. Barbenheimer) last summer. Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to scope out the results, and check out our 2024 Movie Release Calendar to learn about all of the titles that will be heading to theaters and streaming in the remaining weeks of the year.
