Why did Dredd fail
at the box office?
Dredd came out in
2012 and wasn’t very popular as instead of producing a respectful profit it
actually ended up losing money, the budget clearly wasn’t
enough being only $35,000,000 whereas the other superhero films that came out
the same year had budgets of $250,000,000, this is why they became must see
films. However Dredd is a cult film meaning it will become very popular in the
next couple of years or so, therefore earning its money it should’ve got when
it was released.
The distributor for
this film was Lionsgate, although it was actually run by Marvel who have had a
huge impact on children as they have been responsible for many successful
superhero movies over the years, things like Spiderman and all the Avengers
characters. The reason why Dredd may be wasn’t such a success could come down
to its rating, it was an 18 certificate because of the blood, violence and
cursing, however all the other Marvel superhero films are suitable for those
who probably enjoy superhero films the most, children. Dredd simply lost money
because it wasn’t directed at the correct audience, children weren’t allowed to
go and see this film at the cinema because of their age, this therefore
excluded most of the fans of Marvel meaning not as many people were paying to
go and see this film. However saying this Pete Travis the director had to
follow on from the comic book: 2000AD, which involved gory scenes.
2012 was a huge year for superhero films as it
wasn’t just Dredd that was released; there was three more popular contestants,
two of the three were also by Marvel and these films were The Amazing Spiderman
and the all-time favourite superhero film ever The Avengers Assemble. The other
film was also a big hit but wasn’t by Marvel, The Dark Knight Rises (Batman) is
sponsored by DC. Therefore this meant that Dredd had some hard competition and
it wasn’t going to be easy to win as proved.
Dredd was developed
in CGI which is computer work this means it would have been an easy film to
produce as they would have added the 3D effect in after filming the whole film.
Therefore this could have been another reason why the public didn’t seem to
like it as it wasn’t very advanced because in some scenes it actually looked
quite fake.
Dredd is a British
film and was made to compete against those more developed US films like The
Avengers which is the film I have chosen to compare against Dredd as I feel its
an amazing film with great amount of action and excitement. However Dredd didn’t
compete very well as it was a failure, unfortunately as it just didn’t stand up
to the other superhero films of 2012.
Although Karl Urban
(Judge Dredd) was an outstanding man for this character there were problems
that arose when the film was published, one of these reasons was that the
viewers never got to see Dredd’s face which was actually annoying because
people wanted to see who he was as he did a brilliant job. Also the producer
made Dredd very violent which he was in the comics but maybe not as much as he
was in this film, the reason for this being a problem is that it was a big
shock and a little unnecessary as Dredd was more focused on just brutally
killing people. The film was made in the UK but didn’t feel like it was, it wasn’t
British enough as they used US sceneries and developments that we rarely have
back in the UK.
The stars that
featured in Dredd aren’t well known, they weren’t A listers. I only knew Karl
Urban who played Dredd as he has also starred in a few other films that I have
seen like RED and Star Trek into Darkness. I think that he was an exceptional
Judge Dredd and Pete Travis chose the correct man for the job. The other stars
were Lina Heady who played Ma Ma and Olivia Thirbly who had the role of Dredd’s
apprentice sidekick, Anderson. The reason why they couldn’t enrol big stars was
simply because the budget was too low to be able to pay them and pay for
everything else that is also just as important, having said this however each
actor/actress was brilliant in playing their individual parts. Pete Travis was
the director for this film, his highest rated film was Omagh produced in 2004,
therefore being a long time since he was in some line of work, Dredd was his
escape to become a well-known director. Helping him along the way was Carlos
Ezquerra and Alex garland who were the producers, they had never done a film so
supposedly Dredd was again a way to become a tad more famous. The budget has
been mentioned earlier, $35,000,000 really wasn’t enough, I think that if they
maybe produced more money before starting the film they could have made this film
more popular and created a profit therefore enabling there to be a sequel,
meaning more films would’ve been made, I wish that this was the case as I enjoyed
it.
The film was shot
digitally and primarily in 3D using the Red x camera, this camera was made
specifically for Dredd, this took a big chunk out of the budget as the
technology was very advanced.
I believe that the
film wasn’t marketed very well as I never saw an advert on TV or a viewing of
it when at the cinema, however Dredd's marketing campaign won a Golden Trailer
Award for Best Thriller TV Spot for the trailer "Big Addicted", reports
indicate that Lionsgate contributed $25 million to advertising & print
costs. The opening weekend in the UK it was showing on 415 screens however in
the USA it was showing on 2,506 screens which is a massive improvement from the
UK.
My choice of film:
The Avengers
The film I have
chosen has made a huge impact on superhero films, its said that The Avengers is
the greatest ever superhero film and that its going to be difficult to make a
better one. This was because unlike Dredd, The Avengers had A list stars like:
Robert Downey JR, Samuel. L. Jackson and Chris Evans I could go on, also they
had a huge budget of $220,000,000 which is why it was a blockbuster.
Another reason for
The Avengers being more successful is because the age range wasn’t aimed so
high, it was a respectful 12A which enabled children to watch the film when it
was released. This therefore also enabled families to go and see the film
together. The word of mouth was great as everyone was talking about how good
the film was and that you should definitely go to watch it. Because of this The
Avengers was in cinemas for a long time because this way it was able to produce
much more money.
The director Joss
Whedon hadn’t directed any films before, The Avengers was his first ever film
which I think is amazing as it was such a success, this will enable Joss to
have a good career if he is able to produce films like The Avengers. The
producers were Zak Penn and also Joss Whedon, there were both able to create a
fantastic storyline with many exciting scenes throughout.
To conclude the
reasons why Dredd failed at the box office is because of the audience it was
aimed at, not being enough money, not very famous stars, also I think that
Dredd isn’t really a superhero as he doesn’t really save people like Iron Man,
Thor, Captain America etc. Overall I also
believe that there was too much violence and not enough work done on the actual
story meaning they had enough time to improve it.
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