Everyone really was waiting for Red One to come to streaming, apparently

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s inexplicable attempt at creating a new Christmas classic, Red One, was flop at the box office. It earned $92.5 million domestically and $175 million worldwide against a $200 to $250 million budget. But as one industry insider put it to Deadline, “Amazon is a place where there’s no stakes.” The giant tech company is free to spend exorbitant money however it pleases and then claim success based on mysterious metrics. For instance, now that Red One is streaming on Prime, the film is apparently the service’s biggest opening ever with over 50 million worldwide viewers in the first four days, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Of course, it makes a certain amount of sense that people who weren’t motivated to go to a theater and pay for a Red One ticket might be passively interested enough to stream it once it landed on a service they were already paying for. However, it should be noted that Amazon doesn’t release any of the data behind its data, so we don’t really know how the company came up with this “over 50 million” number. The previous “biggest opening” on Prime Video was Jake Gyllenhaal’s Road House, which the service claimed attracted 50 million viewers in its first two weeks. But us plebs have no way to fact-check Amazon’s math.  

Nevertheless, given the business model, Red One could quite possibly be the success Amazon claims it to be. Red One was made for streaming, so recouping costs in a theatrical run was probably never the goal. In fact, one might argue that streaming numbers weren’t the ultimate goal, either; though Amazon is now in the entertainment industry, it’s still an e-commerce business at the end of the day. Much like Apple’s entertainment goals are ultimately to sell tech, Amazon’s is ultimately to sell stuff. And if it can run ads against Red One and sell more stuff, well….

Anyway, Amazon is also claiming that the extremely theatrical run was a boon to its streaming premiere. “Every film is different, and we are so grateful for the partnership with our filmmakers in collectively finding the right strategy to get this film in front of the widest possible audience. With Red One, there was no doubt that 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,” Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios, said in a statement (via THR). “It’s rewarding to see our plan pay off for customers, and we are incredibly thankful to the entire filmmaking team and cast who helped make it happen.”