Amazon MGM Studios said its action-themed Christmas movie Red One garnered 50 million global streaming viewers in its first four days, an all-time best for an Amazon Prime Video film release. It’s a streaming result achieved after the movie premiered with tepid reception in theaters internationally starting back on Nov.6 followed by its U.S. theatrical release on Nov. 15.
Following its premiere at the box office, the film debuted on Prime Video December 12.
The outcome will undoubtedly fuel the ongoing debate as to whether films produced by streaming companies are best served by debuting in theaters first before hitting their respective SVOD platform.
“With Red One, there was no doubt that our strategy needed to include a theatrical release and associated marketing campaign, which drove audiences to theaters and generated awareness for the film with viewers who would ultimately tune in on Prime Video,” said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios, in a statement provided to multiple trade outlets, including Variety.
Amazon did not immediately respond to inquiry from StreamTV Insider.
Red One stars Dwayne Johnson as head of security for the North Pole-based operations of “Nick” (played by J.K. Simmons), who teams with a redemption-seeking ne’er-do-well (Chris Evans) after Nick (aka Santa Clause) is kidnapped. The film opened to a middling $32.1 million in the U.S. and Canada, playing in 4,032 engagements. To date, it’s generated around $175 million at the global box office.
That kind of performance would normally doom the bottom line of a motion picture with a reported $200 million production budget. But in the case of Red One, Amazon seems to be just getting started.
“Given the audience response to Red One both in theaters and on Prime Video, the film will clearly be a perennial holiday favorite for years to come,” Salke added.
Amazon’s enthusiasm for traditional theatrical-first release patterns follows comments made by Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos in October that expressed a counter sentiment. When asked by equity analyst Rich Greenfield if his company’s films need the exposure of a box-office run to “pierce the zeitgeist,” Sarandos responded this way: “I’m sure that we can continue to pierce the zeitgeist and have those moments in the culture, even when those moments begin on Netflix.”
Sarandos noted at the time that each of the top 10-ranked films that have premiered on Netflix sans theatrical run each has more than 100 million views.
“It’s our desire to keep adding value for our consumers for their subscription dollar,” he added. “We believe that not making them wait for months to watch the movie that everyone’s talking about adds that value.”
For its part, Red One’s record streaming premiere bested the Prime Video debut performance of Amazon MGM Studios’ 2023 remake hit Road House, which needed two weekends to garner 50 million viewers.
Notably, Amazon isn’t explaining how it arrived at its “viewers” metric. Netflix determines “views” by dividing the runtime for a movie or TV show by the number of accounts that stream the content.