Nepo Baby Bust With Flops Like ‘Red One,’ ‘The Watchers’

It can take just a generation for a family name to go from Oscar darling to Razzie frontrunner.

Case in point: Jake Kasdan’s Christmas-themed “Red One” landed in theaters on Nov. 15 with a thud louder than Santa’s sleigh hitting a rooftop. The Dwayne Johnson–Chris Evans pairing, which chronicles the bid to rescue Old Saint Nick after he is kidnapped from the North Pole on Christmas Eve, has mustered just $175 million worldwide to date despite a colossal $250 million budget. For Kasdan, the son of four-time Oscar nominee Lawrence Kasdan (“The Big Chill,” “Body Heat”), the “Red One” reviews were even harsher than the box office, with the film receiving a 30% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Kasdan — whose track record outside “Red One” was enviable, with $2.5 billion in box office from the recent “Jumanji” films and others — was far from alone this year. The past 12 months have featured a procession of underperformers and downright embarrassments hailing from nepo baby filmmakers and executives with names like Spielberg and Shyamalan. In fact, 2024 may go down as the year of the nepo bust.

“The first inclination is to say, ‘I want as much money for my budget and as many shooting days as possible.’ But you may come to regret that because in many ways you’re setting yourself up for failure and scrutiny,” says Peter Newman, head of the MBA/MFA graduate dual degree program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. “People should be encouraged to be cautious about what they say yes to and not ask for this and that even if someone’s willing to give it to them.”

And someone often is willing to give the spawn of Hollywood’s A-list more than needed. For her feature directorial debut, Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of Oscar nominee M. Night Shyamalan, secured a $30 million budget for the supernatural horror movie “The Watchers” — an extraordinary sum for a first-timer. Despite a release from…