Red One | |
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Directed by | Jake Kasdan |
Screenplay by | Chris Morgan |
Story by | Hiram Garcia |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Dan Mindel |
Edited by |
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Music by | Henry Jackman |
Production companies | |
Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 123 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $200–250 million [2] [3] [4] |
Box office | $84.1 million [5] [6] |
Red One is a 2024 American action-adventure Christmas fantasy comedy film directed by Jake Kasdan and written by Chris Morgan, from an original story by Hiram Garcia. The film follows the head of North Pole security (Dwayne Johnson) teaming up with a notorious hacker (Chris Evans) in order to locate a kidnapped Santa Claus (J. K. Simmons) on Christmas Eve; Lucy Liu, Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt, Nick Kroll, Kristofer Hivju, and Wesley Kimmel also star. The film is seen as the first of a Christmas-themed franchise, produced by Amazon MGM Studios in association with Seven Bucks Productions, Chris Morgan Productions, and The Detective Agency. [7] [8]
Red One was released internationally by Warner Bros. Pictures on November 6 and was released in the United States by Amazon MGM Studios through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on November 15, 2024. [9] The film received generally negative reviews from critics.
M.O.R.A (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority) is a clandestine, multilateral military organization that oversees and protects a secret peace treaty between mythological creatures and humanity. Callum Drift, head commander of Santa Claus's ELF (Enforcement Logistics and Fortification) security, requests to retire after one last Christmas run, as he has become disillusioned with increased bad behavior in the world, exemplified by the growth of Santa's Naughty List. On Christmas Eve, a black ops team breaks into the North Pole complex and kidnaps Santa. Callum notifies Director Zoe Harlow about the kidnapping, and her team discovers that the North Pole's secret location was compromised by Jack O'Malley, a mercenary black-hat hacker who claims to be able to find anything in the world.
Zoe has Jack apprehended for questioning, but Jack did not know the information he hacked was related to Santa, and merely sent said information to an anonymous buyer. Zoe offers to double Jack's payment if he helps them find Santa but places a tracker inside him. Callum reluctantly teams up with Jack to find Santa, first by tracking down the broker who arranged the deal between Jack and the kidnapper in Aruba. The broker tells them that the kidnapper is the winter witch, Grýla. Grýla becomes aware of their conversation and sends her snowmen to eliminate them; though Callum and Jack defeat them, the broker is iced in the scuffle.
Callum suspects that Grýla might be working with Krampus, Santa's estranged adoptive brother, who is also Grýla's ex-lover, and the one who created the Naughty List. Callum and Jack break into Krampus' lair but are captured. Callum appeals to Krampus to help his brother, who misses him, but Krampus refuses. Despite being allowed to leave, Jack stays and persuades Krampus to play Krampusschlap with Callum, during which Jack recovers Callum's magic gauntlet and returns it to him, allowing the pair to escape.
Grýla and her sons have Santa kept in a vault that siphons his magic, knocking him unconscious. Grýla duplicates the glaskafig, a magical imprisoning snow globe, and intends to rid the world of every naughty child who has ever been on the Naughty List by imprisoning them forever. She tests the snow globes on Jack and his estranged son Dylan. She sends each of them a snow globe that imprisons them and returns to her lair. Jack and Dylan, inside their snow globes next to each other, have a heartfelt conversation that, by making them "nicer", causes the snow globes to break and free them.
Using the tracker in Jack, Zoe and Callum find Jack at the North Pole complex, realizing that Grýla, her team, and Santa never left the North Pole. They also learn that the complex is taken over by Grýla's team of shapeshifters. They go to the North Pole and free the imprisoned Mrs. Claus and other security staff. In Santa's old workshop, they find Jack and Dylan and the toy-duplicating equipment that Grýla used to mass-produce the snow globes.
Because the North Pole equipment relies on Santa's powers, Grýla prepares to leave with an unconscious Santa using his sleigh to distribute the snow globes. A fight ensues, and Grýla is stopped by Callum and Jack, with an assist from Krampus, who arrives to help. Santa recovers and acknowledges his brother, while Grýla is sealed inside one of her snow globes and turned over to Zoe's custody.
With Grýla defeated, everyone rapidly prepares for the night's Christmas Eve run. Santa invites Jack and Dylan to accompany him, which they accept. During the successful run, Callum watches Jack regain his wonder and build a relationship with Dylan; this convinces him not to retire.
Hiram Garcia at Seven Bucks Productions conceived the idea for the film, [11] which was developed into a screenplay by Chris Morgan for Jake Kasdan to direct. [12] Chris Evans joined the cast in January 2022. [13] In September 2022, Kiernan Shipka was added to the cast. [14] Lucy Liu, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, J. K. Simmons, Nick Kroll, Kristofer Hivju, Wesley Kimmel and Bonnie Hunt joined the cast the following month, with Ellis revealing her and Simmons' involvement on Instagram. [15] [16] [17] [18] Dwayne Johnson was paid $50 million for his involvement. [19]
Filming began in October 2022 in Atlanta and wrapped in February 2023. [16] [20] Filming ran into issues with Johnson, who was an average of seven to eight hours late to film his scenes and missed several days of shooting. These delays reportedly increased the budget by $50 million to a total of $250 million, which Garcia disputed. [4] Johnson later admitted to frequent tardiness as well as urinating in bottles on set, but Evans and Kasdan defended him. [21] [22]
Red One was originally scheduled to be released on Prime Video worldwide in time for Christmas 2023. [23] The release was delayed from December 20, 2023, until November 15, 2024, with the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike cited as the reason, along with the film now getting a worldwide theatrical release. [24] [25] Johnson pushed for Red One to be released in IMAX after watching an IMAX screening of Oppenheimer while Red One's principal photography was still underway. Johnson thought that Red One in the IMAX format would be "game over". [26] Amazon MGM will distribute it in the United States, while Warner Bros. Pictures will handle the film's international release. [27] In the United Kingdom and Ireland, it was released on November 6, 2024. [28] In Latin America, it was released on November 7, 2024, [29] with pre-release advance screenings starting October 31, 2024. [30]
Footage of Red One was first shown at CinemaCon in April 2024 to journalists selected by Johnson's publicist, but they were not allowed to write about what they saw. [4]
As of November 17,2024 [update] , Red One has grossed $32 million in the United States and Canada, and $50 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $83 million. [6] [5]
In the United States and Canada, Red One was projected to gross $30–35 million from 4,032 theaters, with some independent sources predicting a debut as low as $25 million or as high as $40 million. [3] [31] The film made $10.9 million on its first day, including $3.7 million from Sunday and Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $34 million, topping the box office. [2] Speaking on its opening, Variety concluded that "it'll take a Christmas miracle for Red One to become a profitable hit at the box office," but noted that streamers like Amazon, Apple, and Netflix don't necessarily need their films to be successful in theaters to be considered a success, citing 2023's Killers of the Flower Moon , which debuted to $23 million against a $200 million budget but later became a hit on Apple TV+. [32] [33]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 33% of 110 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.3/10.The website's consensus reads: "Wrapped in slick packaging but wholly lacking in holiday magic, Red One is a ho-ho-hum action-adventure." [34] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 34 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. [35] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it a 78% overall positive score, with 57% saying they would definetly recommend it. [2]
Peter Bradshaw, writing for The Guardian , gave the film one star out of five, describing it as "profoundly depressing and blandly sentimental" and concluding "this commercial and formulaic slice of content is a toy destined to be forgotten, not by Boxing Day, but mid-November." [36]
Glenn Garner of Deadline Hollywood said the film "blends genres for some family-friendly holiday fun with a generous dose of self-aware absurdity" and write: "Yes, it's cheesy, but this movie is best when it leans heavily into the cheese. If that makes your eyes roll, keep in mind this is a Christmas movie ultimately intended for kids who've made it all the way through the MCU on Disney+ twice and their parents now need a reprieve. There are still some jokes aimed at the cold-hearted adult who will inevitably be dragged along on the family cinema outing." [37]
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