Why Was Dredd a Flop?

The film Dredd; a futuristic irradiated waste land running from Boston to Washington DC lies Mega City One - a vast, violent metropolis where criminals are left to roam the streets and cause havoc. The only force of order left within the megalopolitan are the urban cops called “Judges”, who poses the combined powers of a judge, jury and instant executer depending on the crime. Known and feared throughout the metropolis, Dredd is the ultimate judge; respected and feared by every criminal within the super-city. Dredd is tasked by the Chief Judge to evaluate the new recruit, Cassandra Anderson; a powerful mutant-psychic who failed to aptitude tests to be a judge. The two judges respond to a multiple homicide in a 200-storey slum tower, where drug lord Madeline Madrigal (Ma-Ma) executes three rogue drug dealers by having them skinned, intoxicated by Slo-Mo and thrown down the tower block from the top floor. On their arrival, they arrest a thug named Kay, who Dredd decides to take in for questioning in which Ma-Ma decided to shut down the entire building, leaving the two judges trapped alone, with hundreds of drug barons wanting to kill them…

Pre-production

Dredd was finally released on the 7^th September 2012, after the comic – which came out in July, the same year – built up a lot of hype when it first debuted at Comic-Con. With one of the largest independently produced Brit films of all time and based on a well-loved comic (Judge Dredd) from 1974. Despite having a small budget of only $45 million, Dredd impressed both fans and critics alike. However, when the film first came out none of the hype and enthusiasm expected by critics came to light and the film became one of biggest losses of the film industry that year; taking $27.6 million from markets outside of North America and $13.4 million from North America, making a total of $41 million. Therefore this created a loss of around $14 million, after the film was marketed. It’s often seen that films with such a low budget don’t seem to do well on the box office; with very few exceptions.

However when the film came out none of the expected hype and enthusiasm that critics were predicting came to light and the film was one of the major losses to the film industry that year. But what is at blame to its downfall? Firstly, Dredd was first attempted to be made into a film in 1995 by Hollywood; starring A list stars such as Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider. The film received negative reviews upon its release with the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a score of just 18% based on reviews from 51 critics and an average rating of 3.7/10. The film also picked up comments like, "Judge Dredd wants to be both a legitimate violent action flick and a parody of one, but director Danny Cannon fails to find the necessary balance to make it work." 

Furthermore, the film was considered to be a flop in the United States as it grossed only $34.7 million in the North American domestic box offices and to make it even worse, Judge Dredd picked up a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Sylvester Stallone as the worst actor. However, it did do better internationally with over $78.8 million around the world, giving it a total of $113.5 million worldwide. Therefore with the original 1995 Hollywood version being such a flop, it may have put many people off going to see the latest version of the hit comic.

Also , as Dredd is originally a British comic book character, it puts it into a niche market with competition such as The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Avengers all being released in the same year. So with two huge Marvel franchises and another Batman from DC Comics, surely Dredd was up for a tough year. The fact that Dredd was given an 18 rating also places it into a niche market as it means that the majority of cinema goers; 7-21 would not be allowed to see this film, giving it a smaller potential market, which the other comic book films exploited with ratings of 12, giving them a wider audience and more profits.

Production

Firstly, I feel that the drug “Slow-mo” that is present in the majority of the film doesn’t help it at all as the film seems to me that director Alex Garland managed to get his hands on a few Slow motion cameras and decided to go mad with them, resulting in unconvincing special effects which was picked up a lot by the critics. Another mistake from the experienced director Alex Garland, was investing in 3D cameras where he could have used that to improve the special effects.

In comparison, The Avengers had a whopping budget of $220 million for the making of the film; almost 5 times as much as the budget for Dredd! Also, the producer of The Avengers was Kevin Feige; a well-known producer, similar to that of Dredds - Alex Garland. However, the cast of The Avengers may just skip the scales on which film you would go and see, with A list actors such as Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey JR, Scarlett Johansson and many more, whereas Dredd’s cast featured the likes of Carl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Wood Harris and Lena Headly – not quite as thrilling. Therefore, with that in mine I feel this is one of the reasons that contributed to Dredd’s failure to succeed in the box office.

Post production

The marketing side of Dredd suffered a huge blow in its bid to be successful with a very low budget of just $25 million. In comparison, the $25 million paid by DNA Films was just a fraction of what Marvel paid for the advertisement of The Avengers with $4 million just going on a 30 second advert at the Superbowl.

Finally, Dredd also didn’t do well when it came to screening it, mostly down to the fact that it was only showed in 3D with not many small cinemas having the equipment to show the small production. Only large cinemas that showed a huge variety of films in London or small independent cinemas showed the film, meaning that Dredd took very little from the cinemas.

In conclusion, I feel that Dredd failed because it decided to shoot the film in 3D. If they hadn’t of done this, they could have spent the money they spent on 3D cameras on marketing the film to get more people to watch it, or instead on improving the special effects to make them more convincing. Finally, if they hadn’t have filmed Dredd in 3D, it may have been showed in a wider variety of cinemas, increasing its potential profits and helping it to succeed.

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