Three controversial movies hit streaming this past weekend, and one seems to be outperforming the rest. After less than a month in theaters, Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evan’s action holiday flick Red One made its debut, and it’s making quite an impression on viewers with a Prime Video subscription. The “lump of coal” critic reviews might have been enough to dissuade people from making the trip out to theaters to catch the film, but now that it’s free and they can watch it at home, they seem to have no problem checking it out.
Red One features a star-studded cast, including J.K. Simmons as a pretty cool movie Santa. It centers on an Extremely Large and Formidable (or E.L.F.) operative (Johnson) who teams up with a hacker/bounty hunter (Evans) to rescue Santa after he’s been kidnapped on Christmas Eve.
According to Variety, Red One is Amazon MGM Studios’ most-watched film debut ever on the streaming service, which is great for the high-budget film that struggled at the box office. Unfortunately, it’s another blow to movie theaters everywhere and further proves the point that consumers aren’t going to theaters as much because they know they’ll be able to watch it for free sooner rather than later.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. After COVID shuttered theaters during the height of the pandemic, Hollywood studios decided to release many of their films to some of the best streaming services to not mess up their release schedules too much. While this was beneficial in 2020, it has tremendously backfired, as it conditioned moviegoers to wait until a film hits streaming instead of making a trip out to the theater to catch it on the big screen.
What’s interesting is how moviegoers are picking and choosing what movies warrant a trip to the movie theaters and which flicks they’re willing to wait until it hits streaming. After all, Wicked broke pre-Thanksgiving box office records and Moana 2 continues to top the charts. And yet, one week earlier, hardly anyone showed up to catch Red One.
It’s possible that the lackluster theater turnout for the holiday action flick is because it’s an original idea, unlike Wicked and Moana 2, which are attached to existing IP. But if a film starring two of the biggest movie stars of this generation can’t convince people to head to theaters, then how are other original projects supposed to succeed?
Part of the problem could be how expensive the movie theater experience has gotten between tickets, concessions and collectible popcorn buckets. This means moviegoers are having to choose which films they want to see. However, if audiences continue to only show up for reboots, revivals and sequels, then Hollywood is going to exclusively make those, leaving no room for original ideas.
The bottom line is that new releases are coming to streaming services way too soon. If studios want their movies to succeed at the box office, they need to leave them there for more than a few weeks. Who knows, Red One may have become a box office sleeper hit had it stayed around long enough. While it’s great that it’s getting the attention it deserves on Prime Video, it's only helping condition audiences to ditch theaters more and more.
