Red One: The Most Exciting Christmas Movie of 2024

The Rise of Christmas Action Movies

This holiday season is just wrapping up, but there's a reason to already look forward to next year's festivities, as one very exciting Christmas 2024 movie just confirmed its release date. Christmas movies are a particularly lucrative genre: if they're good, they're guaranteed to be revisited annually and have built-in, well-known lore through which to generate stories. Their familiarity and re-watchability are a huge part of their appeal, but so is their ability to extend to other genres. Given the sentimentality of the holiday season, Christmas movies tend to fall into the wholesome family comedy category. However, some Christmas movies merge with unexpected genres like horror or action.

Christmas action movies in particular have seen great success as a holiday hybrid genre, especially with comedy added to the mix. Classics like Die Hard come to mind, as well as some recent successes in the Christmas action-comedy lane, like 2022's Violent Night. Another movie that fits this hybrid-genre description is due in a year, and that is partially why it's the most highly anticipated Christmas movie at the moment.

Directed by Jake Kasdan, Red One is a 2024 Christmas action movie starring Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, and JK Simmons. Most details about Red One are still unknown, but Johnson has described the movie as a mix between the Christmas classic A Miracle on 34th Street and his own 2019 Fast & Furious spinoff, the buddy action comedy Hobbs & Shaw.

Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans in a toy store in Red One.

The Making of Red One

Filming for Red One began back in October 2022 and ended earlier this year, in February 2023. It was originally predicted that the movie would be released during the 2023 holiday season, but it has now been confirmed that the official release date for Red One is November 15, 2024. Red One will be released in theaters through Amazon MGM studios before streaming exclusively on Prime Video at a later date.

Red One is guaranteed to be a major hit upon its release in November 2024 for a couple of different reasons. As mentioned, it's a Christmas-action-comedy hybrid, which will draw in action and comedy fans as well as festive moviegoers looking to indulge in the holiday spirit. It also has a perfect release date just before Thanksgiving, which has been historically profitable for Christmas movies as it gives audiences enough time to see the movie without competing with returning holiday classics.

The Star-Studded Cast of Red One

The Red One cast is also stacked. While Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans are the main draw, appearing onscreen together as a duo, J.K. Simmons will also co-star in the film as an unconventional, ripped Santa Claus. The hilarious Bonnie Hunt also joined the cast as Mrs. Claus to Simmons's Santa. The star-studded Red One cast also includes Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Liu, Nick Kroll, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, and Kristofer Hivju in unknown roles. Overall, Red One is shaping up to be a huge success and a potential Christmas classic. November 2024 can't come fast enough.

Dwayne Johnson smiling next to J.K. Simmons as Santa in Red One.