Essay: Why did Dredd flop at the Box Office?

Why did Dredd flop at the Box Office?

In September 2012, the film 'Dredd' was released by Lions Gate Entertainment. Many other films with a similar genre had been released around the same time. These included films such as Marvel's 'The Avengers'. The idea for the film came from the comic book ‘2000AD’ and the film in 1985 which was based on this comic, whom Sylvester Stallone starred as the main character, Judge Dredd. It seemed that before it got the green light, the future was looking bright for Dredd and both the media and future audience had an exciting feeling about what it would bring to the screens. 

The income of money relies on how big of an audience views a film. There is a vast majority of reasons why someone may or may not choose to watch something, one of these being who is starring in the film. Dredd didn’t have the names of well known ‘A-list’ stars and so people weren't bothered about seeing a film with actors and actresses they had never heard of before. Karl Urban was the leading role of Dredd himself but this film was one of the biggest roles he had played and so it didn't really appeal watch him. Other than the lack of big stars, the director was equally unknown as he hadn't done any successful movies in the past, but mostly TV shows such as Cold Feet, The Jury and films such as Vantage Point and Endgame, which aren’t very known. 

Dredd had a particularly small budget at $45 million and so they had to thin carefully how they wanted to balance the money between resources. Though it did look positive at the beginning as the pre-sales made approximately $30 million, and the rights to the film being sold was $7 million. 

During the production of the film, the low finance meant a cut down on the camera and editing. A large part of the film was the slo-mo which was a them and the use of SFX helped it come alive. However, it didn't seem entirely convincing and so audiences would watch the film, leave disappointed and not recommend the film to others. The choice to use 3d cameras had a set back on the success of the film,this being that if they used less of the money on the 3d cameras, more of it could have been spent on the SFX to make the audience more satisfied. Alex Garland and the film makers said they didn’t really think about the certificate of the film as an 18. Garland said 'By the end of that we didn’t have any pressure. You could have had studio pressure possibly if it was a studio movie in a different way, that could happen, but the way this movie was set up it was never really an issue.’ However this was an issue as it limited the amount of people that could go and see the film. Dredd was up against competition as ‘Avengers Assemble’ was also released at the same time and had a wider range and over pall bigger audience as the film had a certificate of 12A. Dredd was limited to adults, whereas practically anyone could go to see Avengers Assemble and so families would choose to see that, it was more of an option for all ages, filling the four quadrant pictures. It was also a Marvel film which attracted more attention due to its success and big name in the industry of films. 

In the filming of Dredd, something that let it down was the lack of variety in location as it was filmed only in Johannesburg and Cape Town Film Studios. If it was filmed in more locations then it would have maybe meant the audience would have been more intrigued and recommended the film for others to watch.

Also, there was only an option for it to be screened in 3d at cinemas so, 2D screenings were notoriously limited as the distributor denied cinemas' requests for 2D prints. 2,506 of which were able to show Dredd but only 2,200 were in 3D. 

The marketing choices of the film didn't seem to help. Lionsgate contributed $25 million to advertising & print costs which is almost half of the budget. However there was still very little money for a large campaign so only few choices were made. These included the ‘Dredd Report’ which was a spin on the Drudge Report. An exclusive film poster featuring artwork by Jock was released by Mondo to promote the film's appearance at the 2012 Fantastic Fest in September 2012. 

Shortly before Dredd was released, a film called ‘The Raid’ was also released. Unfortunately for those involved in Dredd, people thought it copied the same concept and comparable plot with which includes lawmen fighting their way through a tower block of terror. 

In conclusion i believe that one the main reasons Dredd was a failure was due to major competition the film had to live up to. There were many films out of similar genre around the time Dredd was released which were very well known from Marvel films such as Spiderman and the Avengers characters. This meant that people were satisfied and didn't need this new film, which failed also in the past creation of ‘Judge Dredd’. It being an 18 meant most cinema goers weren't actually allowed to see it so potential money towards the film was lost immediately which was a resulting factor in the Domestic Total Gross of the film standing at $13,414,714.