Just when you thought Hollywood has run out of original ideas, along comes a trailer for a truly unique take on the traditional Christmas movie. Today, Amazon MGM Studios has released a trailer for Red One and it looks great. With the seemingly thousands of holiday tales that Hallmark has produced over the years, it is amazing that they have not come up with this one, but then again, if they had, we probably wouldn’t want to see it.

I’m not saying that everything about Red One is truly original, but the story is not based on a book, nor is it a reimaging of a holiday TV special, and the movie is not a sequel to a previous Christmas film, so, so far, so good.

After a shocking abduction from the North Pole, Jacqueline Frost (Lucy Liu) informs the commander of the E.L.F. Task Force, Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) that he must partner with Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans) a bounty hunter and naughty list abuser to save Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) and more importantly, Christmas. The adventures include characters like a menacing talking polar bear, a dueling Krampus and muscled snowmen. The action comedy looks like it was made for fans of Home Alone.

It has been reported that producer Hiram Garcia from Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions and writer for the Young Rock TV series came up with the idea for the movie. The screenplay was written by Chris Morgan who has written several scripts for The Fast and the Furious franchise and Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Red One is directed by Jake Kasdan known for 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and 2019’s Jumanji: The Next Level.

Red One also stars Kiernan Shipka, Kristofer Hivju, Nick Kroll, Wesley Kimmel and Bonnie Hunt as Mrs. Claus.

The Amazon MGM Studios film was originally planned to be released on Prime Video last Christmas but was delayed due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. However, now the $250 million movie will get a worldwide theatrical release instead. The PG-13 movie opens in theaters on November 15, 2024.