The Rock‘s latest movie debuted at the box office with a $34 million opening weekend.
The WWE legend is teaming up with Captain America star Chris Evans for their new film, Red One. The movie sees The Rock portraying Santa’s head of security, teaming up with Evans to save Father Christmas after being kidnapped in the run-up to Christmas.
The Rock has been everywhere promoting the film, hoping to bounce back from the disappointing performance of 2022’s Black Adam. However, it hasn’t exactly gone perfectly for the former WWE Champion.
BoxOfficeMojo has reported that Red One has opened to a disappointing $34 million in its debut weekend, domestically. The Rock’s latest flick opened to over 4,000 theatres and has underperformed despite the big names attached to the project.
The movie cost a reported $250 million with another $100 million spent on marketing. It is said that a movie needs to double its production budget to make a profit. The $34 million opening is below Joker: Folieux a Deux‘s $37 million which was described as “catastrophic”.
The film has earned another $50 million internationally, which takes the sting out from the tail of their domestic take. If it continues to impress abroad it has a chance of becoming profitable.
However, Joker 2 only managed a $58 million domestic take in the end. Red One hasn’t had the negative press that Joker 2 did, so I wouldn’t expect the drop-off to be quite so cataclysmic and should do better by the end of its run.
It’s only two weeks until the release of Moana 2 which would likely signal the end of Red One‘s hope of making big money in the box office. At the current rate, it is looking like a second consecutive flop from The Rock.
