Why did Dredd fail at the Box Office

 

Dredd is a film that is about a very violent and a very futuristic city where the police are called judges and have lots of authority. They have the right to kill someone whenever they like as long as they deserved it from a crime they have committed. The main character in the film who is ‘Judge Dredd’ teams up with a trainee judge on her first day out in the field, little does she know it is going to be the hardest mission of all time, while ‘Judge Dredd’ decides whether she passes her test. The gang they try and take down is one from Beach Trees tower block, which makes and sells and also abuses the use of a reality-altering drug called slow-mo. This drug makes you see time at 1% out of the normal 100%. This film doesn’t take long until it hits the

main part of the story that drags on for some time.

Pre-Production

The film’s producer was someone called Alex Garland who has produced other films such as; 28 days later and Sunshine, which are totally different film to Dredd. The distributors for the film were; Entertainment Film, Lionsgate and Distributors. Lionsgate are a Canadian-American entertainment company who has distributed loads of other films such as The Hunger Games. This film was a massive hit, so Alex Garland may have thought this would have ben a great choice of distributors. The chairman of Lionsgate is a man named Mark Rachesky, CEO is Jon Feltheimer and vice chairman is Michael Burns. The films script writer was by someone called John Wagner who has wrote about things in the past before so it was a bit of a mystery on why he was chosen to write a script to do with the future. Lionsgate announced that they had a three picture deal with IM global while in 2010. IM Global is one of the leading film financing, sales and distribution companies in the world. The companies owner is a man called Stuart Ford who is the CEO. DNA Films is a British film production company who are owned by two men called Duncan Kenworthy and Andrew Macdonald. They have a very close relationship and also, they partner with Fox. The funding that DNA provided for the production of the film was $50 million and Fox paid half towards that sum on money aswell.

The character for Dredd was announced and it was Carl Urban who was going to play the role of ‘Judge Dredd’ who is the main character in the film. Comic-Con was the place that he announced he would be playing this role and it was to the Collider.com web site. The film had a good start as it made $45 million in pre-sales which in my opinion is pretty good. Also, a distributer even paid $7 million just to show the film. Dredd was filmed in South Africa at the Johannesburg and Cape Town studios. Also, the set was only on three floors not the two-hundred it shows n the film.

Production

The law govern is the gun that Judge Dredd himself uses. This is a gun which only fires when he is the one using the gun, also it has lots of different ammunitions which can be automated into use with just a command of his voice. The law govern was first designed back in the 20^th Century in the year of 1995. It originally appeared in the comic book. Also, it appeared in the first make of the film Dredd. The reality altering drug that is called slow-mo was first designed at the same time as the film ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Jon Thurn. The film makers of Dredd felt no pressure at all by the film being certified at an 18. The first day of filming the film Dredd started out on the 12^th November 2010 and then carried out until around 13 weeks later which was when they finished the filming Dredd. The cameras that were used to film Dredd were the RED MX cameras and the S12k’s.

Post-Production

There was a huge issue that occurred once it came to the editing side of the filming of Dredd. This was that the main editor, Travis was prohibited in the editing process as there were creative disagreements between some of the production team and the production executives.

 

Distribution and Marketing

The film Dredd wasn’t shown in loads of cinemas as the majority of the viewings were in 3D. Dredd was shown in 2,506 locations and cinemas and up to 2,200 of those were shown in 3D. The producers wanted to promote Dredd in 3D and by doing so they had a whole section which was all about the film at Comic-Con. This was for under 25’s, and this was the way to get the film noticed. The producers wanted the film to be known viral and to do that LG partnered with other publisher 2000AD and Motion Comic which they then created an online comic strip for people to see that there was going to be a prequel to the original film Dredd. There is an event which is an annual film festival in Austin Texas which was founded in 2005; this is called ‘Fantastic Fest’. This would appeal to the films target audience as there will be other films similar to Dredd there. Also, it will appeal to people who like any type of film which takes their interest. Dredd’s marketing campaign was pretty good as they had made a trailer which won awards. The award that the films marketing campaign won was the Golden trailer award.

The budget for Dredd was only $45 million which doesn’t make it a block buster or anywhere near it as they would have to have a budget of double that just to make it close to it being a blockbuster film. However, the film grossed $41 million at the box office which shows that they didn’t make much money there. There was an unusual step that the producers took to get people to see the film which was to completely get rid of the option of being able to watch the film in 2D and that it must be viewed in 3D. There are people who are physically unable to watch films in 3D and that figure is 18% of people. This then makes you wonder why the producers did this as it already cuts out an audience for viewing the film. An unfortunate thing occurred when Dredd was being released and that was that a film called ‘Raid 2’ had been released shortly before that and the two films story lines were identical to eachother. However, this all happened by an accident and it wasn’t anyone stealing ideas on their films. The position occupied by the film Dredd in the DVD charts was 1^st place. The films DVD in America managed to sell 650,000 copies which isn’t that much at all. The amount of money that equated to was just over $10.5 million which isn’t much considering that was all of their DVD sales in America.

 

Why it failed

Dredd made a huge mistake I feel in that they produced the film in 3D instead of the normal 2D. I feel that this was a bad decision by the producers as 18% of people cannot physically watch films in 3D. Another reason is that viewers will have to pay a few dollars or pounds extra which may be too much for viewers or they feel that after that price they would rather see another movie that is on show at the cinemas at that particular time. Also, to watch movies in 3D you have to wear 3D glasses which people can find very annoying to sit through the duration of the film with glasses on which is uncomfortable for viewers who don’t normally wear glasses which is including myself. Another reason as to why Dredd failed was that it was certified as an 18 at the cinemas. This then narrowed down the potential viewers who can see this film at the cinemas by a considerable amount. Also, I believe that most adults would rather watch a blockbuster film in 3D that they know they will get their money’s worth for, rather than watching a prequel to a futuristic film that never took off in the first time it was produced. With all of these reasons in mind, I feel as though they were then aiming this film now at a niche market which didn’t help sales. My final reason as to why this film failed was that the film Raid 2 was released shortly before Dredd was released and was a better version of Dredd anyway which also again would have decreased sales.

Comparison to the Avengers

These two films were similar to eachother in a roundabout was as they were both futuristic.

The Avengers had a budget of $220 million in the making of the film which was huge and it was also huge in comparison to Dredd’s budget which was $45 million. The producer of The Avengers was by a man named Kevin Feige who was a well-known producer just like Dredd’s producer who was Alex Garland.  The cast members of The Avengers were way more attractive than Dredd’s cast list as The Avengers had; Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Evans, Robert Downey, JR and Mark Ruffalo. This was compared to Dredd’s cast list of whom it featured; Carl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Wood Harris and Lena Headly. The actors were much better in The Avengers cast list than Dredd’s as you can see. I believe that this had a major impact as to why The avengers did much better at the box office than Dredd managed to do.