Nicole Kidman’s erotic thriller faces off with horror flick as Christmas Day movies take dark turn

Two of the three main ones movie releases on Christmas they don’t offer much in the way of family holiday viewing.

“Babygirl,” starring Nicole Kidman, is an erotic thriller that features Kidman embroiled in a whirlwind affair with an intern at her company.

Kidman described the film, which also stars Antonio Banderas and Harris Dickinson as her husband and affair partner, as “obviously about sex, about desire, about your inner thoughts, about secrets, about marriage, about truth, power, consent.” while he was at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.

This is one woman’s story and I hope this is a very liberating story, said the Oscar winner. by variety.

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

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

“There’s a couple of Christmas Easter eggs in there, so I feel like if you’re looking at them on Christmas, you’re going to feel in tune, you’re going to feel like they’re in the same time as you,” she continued. “And, you know, there’s snow! It’s getting pretty cold. Who doesn’t like to think about death and the realm of the dead at Christmas?”

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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“Actually [has] nothing to do with the holiday season,” Travis Knox, an associate professor at Chapman University told Fox News Digital. “It’s the season of awards. All these 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 theaters for seven days. So, you look at December 25th and open [then]that gives you seven days. So putting the movie in at the very end, maybe not releasing it on a huge number of screens, makes them all Oscar-eligible.”

“A lot of them, what they’re looking for is to keep them on a more limited number of screens in the new year. See what happens with awards season and then start. If you start winning, you capitalize on 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 Timothy Chalamet, which certainly has wider appeal, in part because of its star, who Knox noted is “everyone’s late-teens-early-20s favorite” and likely to draw audiences.

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“Wicked” also debuts its sing-a-long screening option on Christmas Day, giving people a chance to fill 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, and so far it’s been like, ‘Please don’t sing while we’re watching the movie.’ ‘ But it gives a bunch of people a chance to do it, especially those who have kids and want to do something that day and maybe they’ve already seen the movie, and the kids are obsessed with this soundtrack like a lot of other people, so it’s a good opportunity for them to watch it too. “

“Actually [has] nothing to do with the holidays. The season is a reward.”

— Travis Knox, Associate Professor at Chapman University

As for new movies more specifically associated with the Christmas season, many of them are now available on streaming services and cable channels, such as Hallmark, Lifetime, and Netflix.

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

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“People used those platforms more because even when the cinema reopened, a lot of people were afraid to go to the cinema and be in a closed space with so many other people that they chose streaming services and those movies became more popular, and they were more accessible to people” , she said.

Rosales continued, “You don’t have to pay for a ticket for every single member of the family. You have that streaming subscription and that’s enough for everyone to watch. So I feel like it’s become more accessible and more family-friendly. Also, if you have young kids, you don’t have to worry about going to the cinema and that your children will disturb everyone else, just relax and enjoy yourself with them at home.”

Knox noted that with movies like “Wicked,” “Moana 2” and “Mufasa: The Lion King” already in theaters, “it’s not like there’s no family meal. It’s just really a busy season for big studio family meals. And it might also scare some people away from trying to release a brand new, non-IP holiday movie 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 budget of $250 million, grossed only $32 million in the United States to mediocre reviews (the film currently holds a 30% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

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

“Whether people like it or not, the value of these films is different for our business model. … If we can get these films out theatrically and cover our P&A [print and advertising] costs, why not? We get a big marketing campaign that’s paid for before the movie hits streaming,” Kevin Wilson, head of theatrical distribution for Amazon MGM he told Variety.

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

— Lara Rosales, senior writer for Tell-Tale TV

Knox considers the claim of the film’s financial success “dubious”.

“By the math, they’ve now lost over a quarter of a billion dollars before it even aired. And they say 50 million viewers in the first weekend…that’s a win. [With] so much money, did you really get enough new subscribers? It’s Amazon. They are already subscribed to Prime. I feel like it was a big mistake, spending so much money on that movie was just irresponsible.”

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Rosales believes that the film might have been more successful at the cinema if it had premiered closer to the holidays.

“A lot of people are probably going to watch that movie, especially now that it’s out on a streaming platform, and maybe they’re going to 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 now it might be better on streaming services,” she said. “And I think for any Christmas movie to be successful, it has to come out closer to Christmas just to give people some kind of Christmas feel and get into the holiday spirit and just the countdown to Christmas and all that stuff.”

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Fewer family or holiday movies showing on Christmas Day is not an entirely new phenomenon.

Per BoxOffice 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 “They’re all probably really, really strong movies. And yes, it’s a Christmas release. But again, it’s more about the awards.”

“There are a lot of families who will go to see a Quentin Tarantino movie [like ‘Django Unchained’]’Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘Les Mis.’ They’ve got an audience, so it actually makes perfect sense to open the doors on Christmas Day.”

As Rosales notes, going to the movies on Christmas Day with family or with friends is a popular activity, so different options are important.

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“There are different genres, different types of stories, and they all attract people because they are different. If we’re going to start premiering Christmas movies like we’re doing now in November, by Christmas, we’re definitely going to want to watch something different,” she said. “And that’s what these movies offer.”