Back in North American, Amazon MGM Studios has always believed the movie would be a Saturday and Sunday play, versus Friday (one major distraction on Friday was the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight on Netflix, although the majority, or 54 percent, of Red One ticket buyers on opening day were male). That theory proved correct; based on Friday traffic, Saturday’s weekend estimate was just $30 million.

Heading into an otherwise quiet weekend, tracking showed the movie opening in the 35 million range domestically. Warner Bros. Pictures is distributing the Seven Bucks production overseas, where Red One opened to $28 million in order to avoid a direct showdown with Paramount’s Gladiator II, which is launching this weekend at internationally a week ahead of its domestic debut. (Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel could do as much as $80 million or more in its foreign bow.)

Red One‘s box office performance will be closely monitored, considering it cost $250 million to make. A major legacy studio in the same situation would come under intense scrutiny if a film carrying that price tag opened to those numbers, but Amazon insists its business model is different and fueled by subscribers and not just box office. It’s also counting on Red One to play throughout the year-end holidays and become a holiday classic for years to come.

The family-friendly picture follows what happens when Santa Claus — whose code name is “Red One” — is kidnapped and the North Pole’s head of security (Johnson) must team up with the world’s most infamous bounty hunter (Evans) in what Amazon MGM describes as a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas.

Directed by Jake Kasdan from a screenplay by Chris Morgan and a story by Hiram Garcia, Red One also stars Lucy Liu, Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt, Kristofer Hivju, Nick Kroll, Wesley Kimmel and J.K. Simmons. It is rated PG-13 in the U.S., where reviews were negative.