Why Did ‘Dredd’ flop at the box office?

The film ‘Dredd’ is about a futuristic police officer working for the police department in the future, the ‘judges’ Dredd is one of the best judges and always works to the letter of the law. The film is written and produced by Alex Garland and stars Karl Urban as Dredd. The film co stars Olivia Thirlby as the rookie judge Anderson. She is training to be a judge. The main aim that the two judges have is to get to the top of the tower block at level 200 and stop the evil drug dealer ‘Ma-Ma’ who is played by Lena Headey.

Dredd comes from a British comic book character Judge Dredd. This character never takes off his helmet and always pulls the same facial expression, one of disgust and hatred. The film is a sci-fi action film. It got some good reviews from film critics about the visual effects, casting and action. Critics were mainly critical on the amount of excessive violence that happens in the film.

The British company, DNA films produced the film. It is a British film and British comic. In may 2010 reliance big pictures agreed with the producers to co-finance the 3-D project and so giving a £45 million budget for the film to be made. The film was made in South Africa and was directed by Pete Travis.

One reason why Dredd might have flopped at the box office was because of the other films that were coming out at the same time. 2012 was a bad time for any super hero films to come out because of the release of the massive hit The Avengers Assemble. This would have been bad because the Avengers film had a massive budget for it, also all of the characters are well known like the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America. This film had a $220 million budget this is compared to the £45 million budget that Dredd had. This difference in money can make or break to make a quality film. Dredd only took £41 billion at the box office where as the Avengers film took $1.5 billion.

Comparing the actors of the two films could give another indication of why Dredd might have flopped at the box office. The film Dredd lacked any massive superstars. Karl Urban is a fantastic actor but is not really known massively worldwide. Compare him to the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson and you are already attracting four really we known actors fan bases. Also the comics are already really well known, probably better known than any of the Judge Dredd films.

Films that are not comic books but that have been released the same year could also affect the amount of money that Dredd takes at the box office, these films include; The Hobbit and unexpected journey, Twilight sage breaking dawn part 2, the hunger games, The dark night rises and 21 Jump street. All these films are big blockbuster films that have huge budget. Also most of these films are in a series so people already know them from other films. Most of these huge films have got big stars in them and already have a large fan base that they are appealing to.

Another reason that Dredd may have flopped at the box office is because the film had an 18 certificate. This is a reason because a large amount of people that wants to go and see comic book films and that have read comic books are often younger than 18 so they wouldn’t have been able to watch it at the cinema. This could not have made any affect because when it was a comic people that would have read It would have been around 12/13 but now they will be about 30/40 so they would have been able to go and watch it at the cinema. This is compared to the marvel films which are normally all around 12A. This would mean more children and teenagers actually going to the avengers at the cinema which would in turn mean more money in the box office.

Dredd is supposed to be a British comic book character but the film doesn’t really make it seem like he is a British character. The film is too ‘Americanised’ with lots of influence in the film from American action films. A good thing about the film is that Dredd never actually takes his helmet off, he never does in the comic books but in the Stallone version of the film he does so it kind of ruins the whole thing. Because he doesn’t show his face this is good because it should be like in the comic books in the actual film.    

Marketing for a film costs a lot of money to actually get the film quite well known by the time the film actually comes out at the screens. One reason why Dredd might have flopped at the box office is because it didn’t have that much money left after making the money to actually spend on the marketing.

Karl urban announced to the world that he was going to be Dredd at Comic Con back in 2010. This was 2 years before the film so it shows that these kinds of films take a long time to make. This would be good to attract people to the film because there are a lot of people that read comic books at Comic con so these people might see Urban say that and start reading the comics, if they liked the comics then they would then be more likely to go and see the film.

During production there was certain special affects that were used in the film, in particular the ‘slo-mo’ this reaction happened when any of the characters took the slo mo drug which slowed down time. 3-D cameras were used during the filming of Dredd. These films made it awkward because then the cinemas had to be able to show it in 3-D if they actually want to show the film. Smaller cinemas would not have been able to show this film because they do not have the right screens and technology. You could not see the film in 2-D even if you wanted to. The slo-mo affects had actually come from a different film, never let me go. They took the idea and used it as the perfect affect for when anyone took the drug.

The film topped the UK box office on its opening weekend, it was the first 18 film to actually do this since SAW 3D in 2010. This isn’t really an indication of why it flopped but it may be a point that the certificate may have an effect on the outcome of the movies profits it was obviously popular on its first weekend because the SAW films are very well known. Because the film was being only shown in 3-D the cinemas thought this was a reason for the numbers going down and down every day, lots of cinemas asked for copies of the film in 2-D but the film’s distributor, Lionsgate, denied them the copies.

In conclusion i think that Dredd flopped because it was not popular enough with people of older ages, also the younger people couldn’t go and see the film at the cinema so it was affected on two age fronts. It is not as much of a family film as the Avengers with more violence and less of a story line. Because it wasn’t very popular with lots of people the film makes know that they now have a specific audience in which to make the sequel for. They have said there is going to be a sequel so this is a positive. They believe that they can create a new film which might gain a profit but most of all people actually want another film.