Nicole Kidman’s erotic thriller faces horror films, while Christmas Day movies take a dark turn

Two of the three big movie releases on Christmas Day don’t offer much in the way of family-friendly holiday viewing.

“Babygirl,” starring Nicole Kidman, is an erotic thriller in which Kidman is involved in a torrid affair with an intern at her firm.

Kidman described the film, also starring Antonio Banderas and Harris Dickinson as her husband and affair partner respectively, as “obviously about sex, it’s about lust, it’s about your inner thoughts, it’s about secrets, it’s about marriage, it is about truth, power, consent,” while at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.

“This is a woman’s story and it is, I hope, a very liberating story,” the Oscar winner said. per Black.

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“Nosferatu,” on the other hand, is a dark, horror-filled retelling of the original 1922 silent film based on the story of “Dracula,” with early reviews also calling it “erotic” and “seductively macabre.” according to IndieWire.

One of the film’s stars, Lily-Rose Depp, acknowledged that the film is not your typical Christmas story, but joked: “Who doesn’t love a good scare at Christmas?” in an interview with Weekly entertainment.

“There’s a few Christmassy Easter eggs in there, so I feel like if you watch it at Christmas, you’ll feel in tune, you’ll feel like they’re in the same time as you,” she continued. “And you know there’s snow! It’s going to be pretty cold. Who doesn’t love to think about death and Hades on Christmas Day?”

There is also a larger strategy behind the decision to release the two films on the biggest holiday of the year.

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“It actually (has) nothing to do with the holiday season,” Travis Knox, associate professor at Chapman University told Fox News Digital. “It’s awards season. All the movies you’re talking about are being talked about for potential Oscar nominations.”

Knox explained, “to qualify for the Academy, you have to be in a theater for seven days. Then you look at December 25th and you open (then), that gives you seven days. So tucking in a movie right in the ending, perhaps not released on a large number of screens, makes them all eligible for an Oscar.”

“A lot of them, what they’re looking for is to keep them on a more limited number of screens into the new year. See what happens with the awards season and start from there. If you start winning, you leverage that to expand into more and more theaters, and that’s really what they’re playing for.”

The third big release on Christmas Day is the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown”, starring Timothée Chalamet, who certainly has broader appeal, in part because of his star, as Knox pointed out, is “the biggest favorite of everyone in their late teens and early 20s” and is likely to draw an audience.

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“Wicked” also debuts its sing-along screening option on Christmas Day, giving people the opportunity to close their hearts with the box office hit.

Lara Rosales, senior writer for Tell-Tale TV, told Fox News Digital, “A lot of people want to go and sing along, and so far it’s been like, ‘Please don’t sing while we’re watching the movie.’ But that gives a lot of people the opportunity to do that, especially those who have kids and want something to do that day and maybe have already seen the movie, and the kids are obsessed with this soundtrack, as so many are, so it’s a good opportunity them to see too.”

“It actually (has) nothing to do with the holiday season. It’s price season.”

— Travis Knox, Associate Professor at Chapman University

As for new movies more specifically tied to the Christmas season, many of them now reside on streaming services and cable channels, such as Hallmark, Lifetime, and Netflix.

Rosales speculates that the COVID-19 pandemic led to a shift in what was available in theaters versus at home.

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“People used these platforms more because even when cinemas reopened, many people were afraid to go to the cinema and be in an enclosed space with so many other people, so they chose streaming services and those kinds of films became more popular, and they were more accessible to people,” she said.

Rosales continued, “You don’t have to pay for a ticket for each family member. You have that streaming subscription and that’s enough for everyone to watch. So I feel like it became more accessible and more of a family-friendly environment where people can just watch it. If you have small children, you don’t have to worry about going to the cinema and maybe disturbing everyone else. When it’s a Christmas movie, you can just relax and enjoy it at home.”

Knox noted that in addition to movies like “Wicked,” “Moana 2” and “Mufasa: The Lion King” are both already in theaters, so “it’s not like there’s no family fare. It’s just a really crowded season too big And it might also scare some people away from trying to release a brand new holiday movie that isn’t based on a piece of IP this time of year.”

Amazon MGM released an original Christmas movie in theaters in November, the action comedy “Red One,” starring Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans. The film, which boasted a $250 million budget, opened to just $32 million in the US to mediocre reviews (the film currently has a 30% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes).

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Last week, when “Red One” landed on Prime Video, the company shared that it was the most-watched film debut ever on the streaming platform, drawing 50 million viewers worldwide.

“Whether people like it or not, the value of these films is different for our business model… If we can put these films in theaters and cover our P&A (printing and advertising) costs, why shouldn’t we ?We’re getting a massive marketing campaign that’s being paid for before the movie hits streaming,’ Kevin Wilson, head of theatrical distribution for Amazon MGM told Variety.

“When it’s a Christmas movie, you can just relax and enjoy with them at home.”

— Lara Rosales, senior writer for Tell-Tale TV

Knox finds the claim “dubious” about the film’s financial success.

“Back in the napkin math, they’ve now lost over a quarter of $1 billion before it even starts streaming. And they’re saying 50 million viewers in the first weekend… that’s a win. (With) so many money, have you really got enough new subscribers?

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Rosales feels that the film could have been more theatrically successful if it had premiered close to the holiday itself.

“Probably a lot of people will watch that movie, especially now that it came out on a streaming platform, and they might watch it closer to Christmas and with their family, and that’s probably why it didn’t do so well at the box office, and that can do better now on streaming services,” she said. “And I think for any Christmas movie to be successful, it has to come closer to Christmas Day just to kind of give people a Christmas spirit and get in the Christmas spirit and just the countdown to Christmas and all that.”

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Fewer family-friendly or holiday-themed movies coming out on Christmas Day isn’t an entirely new phenomenon.

Sore Box Office Mojo“Sherlock Holmes,” “Django Unchained,” “Les Misérables,” “Unbroken” and “Into the Woods” are currently the five highest-grossing movies released on Christmas Day.

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Knox explained the five “are all really, really strong movies without a doubt. And yes, it’s a Christmas Day release. But again, it’s more about awards.”

“There are lots of families out there who are going to see a Quentin Tarantino movie (like ‘Django Unchained’), ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘Les Mis.’ They have built-in audiences, so it actually makes sense to open doors on Christmas Day. “

As Rosales notes, going to the movies on Christmas Day as a family or with friends is a popular activity, so a variety of options matter.

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“They are different genres, different kinds of stories, and they attract all people because they are different. If we are going to start premiering Christmas movies, as is happening now in November, before Christmas Day, we will definitely want to see something different,” she said. “And that’s what those movies offer.”