Weekend predictions: Red One set to kick off the Holidays with moderate opening

Holiday Season kicks off in earnest this weekend with the arrival of action comedy Red One, starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans. The film has all the hallmarks of a holiday hit: two A-list stars and a strong supporting cast, a novel take on a classic Christmas story, and a significant production and marketing budget. Given all that, an opening North of $50 million would be Amazon MGM Studios’ goal. It doesn’t look at though the film will hit those heights, but its performance so far points towards at least a decent opening.

Going into the weekend, our model’s forecast was heavily influenced by the weakness of the theatrical market in recent months, which pulled down its prediction from the mid-30s to the mid-20s.

That assessment looks overly harsh to me, with the model too heavily weighted towards the mid-tier releases that made up the majority of the slate in September and October.

The preview numbers confirm that things are looking better than that.

An opening in the mid-30s would be just fine for Red One. It has the chance of a good run, although there’s a lot of competition arriving between now and Thanksgiving. Reviews aren’t great, which will likely hurt its word-of-mouth. If it can top $35 million this weekend, a total around $100 million domestically remains on the cards.

Also of note this weekend, Searchlight Pictures’ A Real Pain expands wide.

In spite of the model’s optimism, $4.5 million seems like a stretch for this one. A couple of million, with an expansion result similar to My Old Ass looks a better bet to me. (Although, as regular readers know, the model often proves me wrong.)

Here’s what the model thinks the top 10 will look like.

It doesn’t look likely to be a great weekend in theaters, and the onus is almost entirely on Red One to give us an “up” weekend. The good news is that it looks as though it will do well enough to boost the market as a whole and remind movie fans that theaters are a great place to spend time with (or away!) from their family.

Please help support The Numbers with a monthly or one-time donation, or by subscribing to The Numbers Business Report. We keep advertising to a minimum, and only for advertisers who we believe are directly of interest to our readers. If you’d like to advertise your movie or service with us, please email us at advertising(at)the-numbers.com.

Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com