“Red One” seemed like a bizarre experiment, a sort of Santa Claus movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans that bordered on an action movie and almost seemed to be some sort of parody of itself. But after terrible reviews and a mediocre box office, Red One exploded and somehow became Amazon Prime Video’s biggest film debut of all time.

“Red One” has just been released on Amazon Prime Video, and since it is a Prime-based film, it is free for subscribers despite its theatrical release. And here, a week before Christmas, the number of viewers suddenly rose to 50 million, a record for the entire platform. The film is Despite it is playing on 3,000 screens in North America. Here’s what Amazon MGM boss Jennifer Salke said about this development:

“Given the audience response to ‘Red One’ in both theaters and on Prime Video, the film will clearly be a holiday favorite for years to come,” Salke said. “With ‘Red One,’ there was no doubt that the strategy had to include a theatrical release and an associated marketing campaign that drew audiences to theaters and raised awareness of the film among viewers who ultimately tuned in to Prime Video. It’s great to see our plan paying off for customers and we’re incredibly grateful to the entire film crew and cast who helped make this happen.”

Ah, so that was the plan all along! Maybe, but the film reportedly had a budget of $250 million and only grossed $175 million in theaters despite its A-list stars. So what exactly happened here to make Red One a streaming megahit? A few things, most likely:

• Red One may have been a failure with critics, with a terrible 30% Rotten Tomatoes rating, but the audience rating was an excellent 90%.
• In particular, don’t underestimate The Rock’s appeal. He is no stranger to critical misses, but also hits to the public. I remember another rock movie based on Red, Red Notice on Netflix, which had a 37% critic score but a 92% audience score and was one of, if not the biggest, Netflix original movies ever.
• It’s Christmas. There simply aren’t any other new Christmas movies that resonate as much with A-listers like this. That alone is enough to pique interest. And you can perhaps understand that while “Red One” wasn’t worth a cool trip to the cinema with the family for $60, the fact that the film is being released as a free Amazon Prime Video movie does make it a ” “Sure, let’s take a look at it.” moment for many subscribers. A lot, as it turns out.

Still, 50 million viewers in just a few days is something. I wonder if that justifies a sequel despite the box office doing poorly, and if so, whether the film could go straight to Amazon instead. Maybe we’ll know next year.

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