It seems like almost every year, the studios give us a Christmas-themed movie several months before the holidays. In many cases, these films arrive in theaters before Thanksgiving. This year, MGM is opening RED ONE two weeks before Turkey Day, presumably hoping it’ll have the legs to make it to (and through) December 25th, even though history isn’t on their side.
The good news is that tracking for RED ONE is on the rise. Awareness is up 8 points, and interest is up 3 points over the past seven days. At the moment, the data suggests an opening in the $28M – $32M range (though that could go up if tracking continues to rise), but the key to success will be its longevity. That begs the question, how well do these pre-Thanksgiving Christmas films fare? And how successful are they in making it to the back half of December?
While it remains to be seen if RED ONE can survive until Christmas, the odds are not in the film’s favor based on other pre-Thanksgiving holiday films of recent years.
As the table below shows, over the past twenty years, 13 Christmas-themed films opened before Thanksgiving weekend. This does not include films that opened on Thanksgiving weekend itself, like FOUR CHRISTMASES or DECK THE HALLS. Some of these films did well. A BAD MOM’S CHRISTMAS and THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY converted small production budgets into solid box office wins.
However, a closer look at the data shows that the vast majority of the box office dollars for these films came in November. For example, of the $71M that THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY grossed, only $9M came in December (red column). In fact, most of these titles made less than $10M in December.
The column to the far right shows where each film ranked at the box office on Christmas day. Only one film, THE GRINCH, was still in the top 10, while nearly all of them were outside the top 20. In other words, these films aren’t sticking around long enough to reap the rewards of the holiday season.
What does this mean for RED ONE? Part of the reason these films struggle to stay at the top of the box office is the sheer volume of new films released between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year, for example, RED ONE has GLADIATOR II, WICKED, and MOANA 2 opening right on its heels. A few weeks later, KRAVEN THE HUNTER, LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF ROHIRRIM, MUFASA: THE LION KING, NOSFERATU, and SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 all arrive in theaters. There are also a few smaller titles like SEPTEMBER 5th, BABYGIRL, A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, and THE FIRE INSIDE opening on or before December 25th. It’s easy to see how RED ONE might find itself outside the top 10 or even the top 15 by Christmas.
Looking at the table above, the two big breakout hits are THE GRINCH and A CHRISTMAS CAROL, two family-friendly PG-rated films based on established IP. Could RED ONE replicate their success? Possibly, but RED ONE is an original and rated PG-13. Those two things are working against a film with a reported budget of $250M.
Of course, it’s also perfectly feasible that Amazon isn’t banking on having RED ONE be a box office breakout hit through Christmas – after all, they have their own streaming platform to fall back on. Holiday films, in particular, can be evergreen, much like Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas” tops the Billboard charts every December. The library value of RED ONE could be significant, especially if it draws eyeballs on Amazon Prime year after year.