Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s $250m film ‘Red One’ opens to disappointing $34.1m

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s new picture, ‘Red One,’ had a poor opening weekend, grossing only $34.1 million despite a large budget of more than $200 million. Some estimates estimate it may be as high as $250 million.

The action-comedy, featuring the 52-year-old professional wrestler and actor with Chris Evans, was the weekend’s highest-grossing film. Still, it fell far short of expectations, according to studio projections on Sunday.

For traditional studios, a $34.1m debut against such a large production budget would label the film a flop.

However, ‘Red One‘ is an Amazon MGM Studios project, which allows it to rely on streaming performance over time rather than solely on box office numbers.

Johnson’s films typically do well globally, but the studio seems to be banking on long-term success on Amazon Prime Video.

The movie, where Johnson plays Santa’s bodyguard, was originally planned as a straight-to-streaming release.

It was greenlit before Amazon acquired MGM, which may explain its unconventional release strategy.