It’s the most wonderful time of the year – a time for carolling and concerts, trees and tinsel, mulled wine, open fires and, of course, The Rock (aka Dwayne Johnson). Or at least, that is, according to Hollywood. The action star’s latest film, Red One, has been playing in cinemas across the world since mid-November. But critically, it’s been regarded as a bit of a stinker.
For those who missed it, the film was conceived as the first instalment of a Christmas-themed action franchise. It casts Dwayne Johnson as Callum Drift, commander of the North Pole’s Enforcement Logistics and Fortification (ELF) – Santa’s security team.
When Santa is kidnapped on Christmas eve, Drift must team up with a band of Santa soldiers and mercenaries played by action stalwarts like Chris Evans and Lucy Liu, all of whom must punch their way through Lapland to defeat the evil forces attempting to destroy Christmas.
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In the words of its own marketing team, Red One sells itself to audiences as a “globe-trotting action packed mission to save Christmas”. But exactly whose Christmas it thinks its saving remains unclear.
The film currently has score of 31% on Rotten Tomatoes, and opened to poor box office numbers worldwide. Some analysts have predicted that the film will make a loss in the region of US$100 million (£78 million).
Despite the all-too-easy temptation to mock Red One as a clearly ill-conceived project, this is not simply a one-off disaster. On the contrary, Red One is just the latest in a long line of infamous attempts made by Hollywood studios to make a spectacular Christmas action film.
In the 1980s, we had Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), brought to us by the producers of Superman: The Movie (1978). If Superman famously made some viewers believe a man could fly, Santa Claus: The Movie tried to use the same pioneering special effects to make us believe that reindeers could fly, turning Santa’s sleigh ride into the stuff of blockbuster cinema. It was a flop.
In the 1990s, there was Jingle All the Way, an ill-conceived Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle which, despite being the subject of many festive memes was nevertheless a critical disaster. In 2010, Arthur Christmas, a co-production between Aardman Studios and Sony Pictures, attempted to modernise Santa’s infrastructure to upgrade his sleigh to a rocket ship. Yet again, the film was a box office disappointment, despite earning positive reviews from critics.
Of course there are exceptions to the rule of Christmas action films creating box office bombs. Let us not forget that, for many fans, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. But the history of Hollywood trying to bring together the aesthetics of the action-adventure genre with that of Christmas has almost always ended in failure.
Read more: Die Hard is a Christmas (terrorism) movie
So why does Hollywood persist with this strategy? Largely, because it has boxed itself into a corner. In its heyday, Hollywood produced Christmas classics like Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Meet Me in St Louis (1944) and White Christmas (1954).
These films are cosy, warm and comforting. They established the template not only for the ritual of watching films at Christmas time, but also what that Christmas viewing experience should be. But they were all made before the popularisation of television. And, as home viewing has intensified over the past 75 years, Hollywood has been forced to position itself as a distinctly un-cosy equivalent to the armchair and roaring fire.
Watching films at home is relaxing. When we picture our cinematic Christmas routines, I suspect many of us are imagining being surrounded by loved ones, in comfy pyjamas, enjoying a cosy night in together watching Home Alone, The Muppet Christmas Carol or Love Actually with some mulled wine and a tin of Quality Street.
Read more: The Muppet Christmas Carol turns 30: how the film became a cult classic
Going to the cinema, however, is supposed to be spectacular. It is loud, booming, thrilling and visceral. All of that feels a bit intimidating and unnecessary when you’re sitting in your jim-jams with a nice turkey mayo sandwich and cup of tea.
If we don’t want our Christmas movies to look like Red One, we should perhaps ask ourselves what we do want from our seasonal viewing experiences. Statistics show that Christmas is still the time of the year that people are most likely to go the cinema. But the core audience needed to keep cinemas afloat is a younger demographic, that prefers the big superhero, action and science-fiction franchises.
The rest of us, however, are left yearning for a Christmas viewing experience that now seems to have been taken over by the likes of the Hallmark channel and Netflix, which even has a dedicated Christmas section. This is great news for Lindsay Lohan, who seems to be experiencing something of a career renaissance by executive-producing and starring in some questionable Christmas “classics” like Falling for Christmas (2022) and, most recently, Our Little Secret.
These films might be cheesier than a festive baked Camembert, but there’s a reason they’re popular. They remind us of the ghosts of Christmas movies past that big film studios seem unable or unwilling to make today.
The movie industry needs to think hard about the kinds of films it hopes to contribute to the Christmas film tradition in future. But we too need to accept that we might be asking Hollywood for something that even Santa would struggle to deliver.
Alexander Sergeant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
