“Red One,” the Christmas action comedy film starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans, will be available worldwide on Prime Video starting Dec. 12.
Directed by Jake Kasdan and written by Chris Morgan, the holiday adventure movie takes audiences on a whirlwind trip into a hidden world of mythology and magic.
In the film, the mission is to save Christmas as the North Pole's Head of Security teams up with the world’s most infamous bounty hunter.
The cast includes Lucy Liu, Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt, Kristofer Hivju, Nick Kroll, Wesley Kimmel, and J.K. Simmons.
"Red One" (Prime Video)
For the first time in history, the unthinkable has happened: Santa’s (J.K. Simmons) legendary North Pole outpost has been breached and the man himself has been kidnapped.
Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), commander of the E.L.F. and head of security for “Red One” (Santa’s code name), springs into action along with Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans), the world’s best tracker and the man responsible for unwittingly revealing Santa’s secret location.
As the mismatched duo crisscrosses the globe to bring Santa home in time for his legendary annual run, they will have to confront the most treacherous of Yuletide dangers, from Christmas villains Krampus (Kristofer Hivju) and Grýla (Kiernan Shipka) to a trio of sinister snowmen.
About the idea for the film, Johnson said, Years ago, we were just talking about making a Christmas movie - myself and Hiram Garcia, who I’ve known for a long time, and this story started to develop in his head. I said it was pretty good, and we went to Chris Morgan, who we’ve known for a long time, the writer. Then we went to Jake Kasdan, our director, who loved it and wrote with Chris as well. And then the million-dollar question was, who’s going to be the guy with me? And it was always Chris Evans.”
On joining the film, Evans said, They didn’t give me the whole script at first. It was just the first half, and by the first half, I knew I was in because I mean, like you, I was like oh my God, I can’t wait to see what happens here.”
“But, you know, Christmas movies just don’t come along very often. My team called me and said listen, we got this call that Dwayne is doing a Christmas movie with Amazon, and I said, I’m in. I didn’t even need to read it, but then, luckily, it was fantastic and Jake gave a great pitch. It was original and exactly what you want a movie like this to feel. It just felt right,” he said.
About playing Santa, Simmons said, “My version was the version they put on the page, which Jake Kasdan, Hiram Garcia, and Dwayne Johnson all contributed to creating this whole world, and this version of Nick jumped off the page to me.”
“Jake and I spoke a few times before we started shooting about how to best inhabit this character, and it all came very naturally. The relationships, which are always the most important part of any character, film or life, with Mrs Claus, Kal, Jack, and Dylan all unfolded really beautifully,” he said.
"Red One" (Prime Video)