Quinn MacArthur

Why Did Dredd Flop At The Box Office?

Dredd was released in 2012 and was created after the comic book character that had
become popular for a lot of comic book readers who enjoyed to reading about his
character. The script writer for the film was Alex Garland, who was also the producer.
The other producers were Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich. Alex Garland was also
involved in the making of Never Let Me Go, 28 Days Later, Big Game and a lot of other
popular films. Films which Andrew Macdonald has produced include Sunshine on Leith,
The Sweeney and Sunshine. Allon Reich is also known for films such as Never Let Me Go,
28 Weeks Later and The Last King of Scotland.
The production companies for Dredd are IM Global, DNA Films and Reliance
Entertainment. IM Global was founded in 2007 by Stuart Ford and is one of the leading
film financing, sales and distribution companies in the world. Reliance Entertainment
acquired a majority shareholding in the company in May 2010. IM Globals International
sales division ranked #1 in the international box office market share among
independent film companies. They also have many partnerships around the world,
which include, Slumhouse International, Mindial, Dolphin Films International and Huayl
Brothers. DNA Films teamed up with Fox Searchlight in 2003. The aim was to create a
production house with long-term viability with $25 million from Fox and $25 million of
production finance from DNA. Projects were greenlit by DNA Films and benefited from a
guaranteed release committed from Fox Searchlight. Allon Reich and Andrew
Macdonald are the people who run DNA Films and were also the producers of Dredd. All
of these companies worked together to produce Dredd and were planning on a big
release for it.
Dredd had secured more than $30,000,000 in foreign pre-sales. This meant that before
the film was released, it was presumed the film was going to be very popular and would
make a lot of money. If this was the kind of money that they were making before the film
had even been released yet then it is obvious that it would make loads when it had been
released, but it didnt.
There was then a film made in 1995 called Judge Dredd. This film was disliked by the
comic book world as they felt that this film was not a true representation of the camera.
An example of this is that the film would often show Judge Dredds face. One of the main
things about Judge Dredd is that you do not see his face so for the film to show this was
not a true representation. After this film was so unpopular with the public, the second
film released, Dredd, would have already been seen to be a remake of the old film and
therefore is bad. This caused people to not go and see the film as they did not know that
Dredd would be a completely different film about Judge Dredd.
One of the things that Dredd would have been able to do in order to change the minds of
the public would be to advertise it well so that people can see that it is a completely
different make. However, because of the low budget of the film, they did not have
enough to spend on advertising therefore meaning that they were not able to promote it
as well as they should have. This means for the few people that would have heard about
the new films release, they would have not known the nature of the film. The only ways
of advertising the film were a trailer, some posters and a website. The trailer was not
shown as well as it could have been and some people may have had to search for the
trailer if they wanted to see it. However, if people did not hear about the film then they
would not have searched for the trailer because they would not have heard about it.
Posters are a cheap way of advertising a film but also have minimal visibility. A lot of
posters would have had to go up all over the world if they wanted everyone to hear
about the film but that would have just not been possible. The last way of advertising the

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film was the website. However, people could not just have come across the website and
understand what it is about. The website would have been a way to further advertise the
film once people had heard about it. However, the website has a bad layout that is meant
to be on purpose but not a lot of people will understand this and may think the film will
be bad because of the deliberate bad make of the website.
The budget for Dredd was around $45,000,000 therefore making it a low budget film.
This meant that they did not have a lot to spend on the overall film. They would have
had to make sure they had enough money for all of the different things that they wanted
to include in the film as well as paying for the equipment characters, crew and all of the
other aspects of making a film. This may have caused the final outcome of the film not
being as good as first hoped because there may have not been enough money to buy
everything they wanted to buy. Other comic book character films, such as Superman,
Man of Steel had a budget of $225,000,000. This is making it a high budget film and may
be the reason why the Superman films are so popular. Man of Steel was released in 2013
so not long after Dredd was released.
The film having a low budget meant that they were unable to spend a lot of money on
the actors for the film. This means that they were able to get good actors but not A list
ones. The main actors that are in Dredd are Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby and Lena Headly.
All of these actors are classed as B list celebrities meaning that they are well known but
not very famous. However, the actors that are used in Avengers Assemble, which was
also released in 2012, were Robert Downey Junior, Chris Evans, Samuel L.Jackson,
Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hems and Scarlett Johanson. All of these actors are
classed as A list, meaning that they are very famous and have a lot of fans. The fact that
the actors are not as popular as others may mean that they do not have as much fans as
other famous actors have. This causes not as many people going to watch the film at the
cinema or buying the film because they cannot see that their favourite actor in it. When
the public see that an actor that they are a fan of is in a film, they automatically assume
that the film will be good because they believe that the actor will make it this way.
Therefore, when people see a film that contains actors that they have not heard of, they
assume that the film may not be as good.
Judge Dredd is a comic book character and is popular to those who like to read comic
books. However, this is only a small population of the world and by making the film of a
comic book character; the audience is already being narrowed as many people may feel
as though they would not understand the film as they have not heard of the character
before. For the film to make a profit, people would have to feel as though that it does not
matter if you have not heard of the character before and go and see the film anyway.
This is because there may not enough people that know of the character that will go and
see the film to make a profit. People may also see this is as being a typical comic book
film and therefore not seeing it is being any good. They may think that they have seen
enough films like this and do not want to go and see any more.
However, on the other hand superhero films are popular films to both make and to
watch. This means that there are a lot of superhero films that have been made and some
are very hard to live up to. Because of the amount of superhero films that are released, it
may be hard for new superhero films to become successful. This therefore may have
meant that this is why Dredd was not successful, especially because of the fact that he
may not be as popular to begin with. People may not like other superhero films other
than the popular ones which include superheroes such as Superman and Spiderman.
Karl Urban announced that he would be in Dredd at Comic-Con in July, 2010, 2 months
before the filming of the film began. This meant that this was a way that people initially

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found out that there would be a remake of the film Judge Dredd. This was a good and
thoughtful place to announce there would be a new film because this is the space where
you would find the most people who would know about and would be a fan of Judge
Dredd. However, because he announced it before the filming even began it was a long
time for the people to wait and they ended up waiting two years. This means that the
hype would have had to last this long for people to still be excited for it. However, hypes
do not usually last for that long and people may have soon forgotten about Dredd. It may
have made more sense to keep the film a secret and then announce it not long before it
comes out. This would have meant that more people would remember about it and may
tell more people about it.
The age restriction for Dredd is an 18. This means that people under 18 are unable to
watch the film. By making this age so high, this is restricting the amount of money that
they could have made already, especially because teenagers are known for being people
that go to the cinema a lot. This means that they are not getting the money they could
have potentially made because of the fact that they are cutting out this money. Other
comic book character films, such as Spider-Man, have a certificate of 12A. This means
that only people over 12 are able to see this film without an adult. However, if the child
is accompanied by an adult, children under the age of 12 are able to go and see the film
at the cinema too. This means that this film is not stopping anyone from seeing the film
therefore making as much money as they could have. However, Alex Garland, who was
the writer and the producer for the film, is happy that the film is an 18 as he feels that
the age that it is at is the most suitable age for the content of the film. He feels as though
films that have its age pushed down so that more people can watch it is wrong as it is
not suitable for them.
Dredd was unfortunately realised after a film named The Raid. This is a film that is
similar to Dredd in what it is about. This means that two films were released at the same
time that were similar. The plot for The Raid is lawmen fighting their way through a
tower block of terror. However, it is shown that The Raid was better for audiences to
watch and it was more entertaining. This means that people are more likely to go and
watch The Raid if they hear that it is the better film. They are also not going to go and
see a film that is the same concept but may be worse.
Dredd is classed a British film. However, it is based in America with American actors.
This means that the film seems as though it is American. This means that its not seen as
British because you initially believe that the film is in fact American. Therefore, many
peoples reason to not see the film may be because they do not believe it is British
enough. This may be people that only like to watch British films or because they believe
that this film should be classed as American and they therefore do not want to watch it.
However, the film was made to compete with American films and not British so this may
be the reason why it is so American. They wanted the film to be compared to the big
Hollywood blockbusters that are seen all over the place, which did not happen.
Dredd was filmed in Cape Town, Johannesburg which is located in South Africa. A
drawback to this is that the whole crew, cast and equipment would have had to get to
South Africa in order to film there. This may have cost the production a lot of money
because it is a lot of people and items that would have had to be flown over. This may
have affected the budget because this cost would have had to be taken away from this.
This would have meant that there was even less money to spend on other aspects of the
film. There is also no variety in the location throughout the film. This is because it is set
in just once place and the setting does not really ever change. This may bore people and
they may not enjoy it that much. This may put them off the film because they may enjoy
variety and a different setting.

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There are some slow motion scenes in the film that are not entirely convincing. Several
people disliked the slow motion scenes and this affected their view on the rest of the
film. This is because not a lot of money was spent on the slow motion scenes and
therefore it was not as good as it could have been. If there was more money in the
budget then these scenes may have been better and would have made the overall film
better for some people. The slow motion scenes are to make us see what we would be
seeing if we also had taken the gas that makes the characters see in slow motion. This
allows the audience to be a bigger part of the film as we are able to see as though we are
in the film. Alex Garland said that the slow motion scenes are his favourite scenes from
the whole of the film which shows that the film makers where proud of this film and
they believe that these are good scenes. However, the publics opinion is what really
matters and they did not like it meaning that it may have affected their thoughts on the
rest of time film. This may be a reason why Dredd flopped at the box office.
Dredd was advertised as a 3D film and it was only shown as a 3D film. This meant that
you were unable to see the film in 2D even if you wanted to. However, 3D films are more
expensive than 2D films meaning that people would have had to spend more money at
the cinema if they wanted to go and see it. This may have put some people off going to
watch the film because they would have not wanted to spend that extra money on
tickets. This also meant that some independent cinemas were unable to show the film
because they could not show 3D films. This means that people who lived close to only
these cinemas would not have been able to see this film. This is therefore further cutting
the films audience and the amount of money they may have potentially made at the box
office. Also, many people do not like to watch 3D films as they do not enjoy having to
wear the 3D glasses. This may be one of the many reasons why Dredd flopped at the box
office.
The conclude, there were a variety of reasons why Dredd flopped at the box office and
why it is not as popular as first thought it would have been. The main reasons, from my
point of view, are the certificate of 18, the films budget and the fact that is was seen as a
remake. I feel as though if it was a 12A, like most other superhero films, then this would
have meant that more people would have went and saw the film at the cinema which
would have meant that they would have made more money at the box office. I feel as if
the budget is the main reason why the film flopped at the box office because they did not
have enough money to be able to advertise it well enough that would have meant a lot of
people would have heard about it and went to go and see Dredd at the cinema. Finally, I
feel as though the fact that the film was made after a film that was so unpopular that this
film would have already been classed as being a bad film. This would have meant that
less people would have went and saw the film because they already have it in their head
that it will just be a worse version of the first one. I feel that everything, added together,
is the reason why Dredd flopped at the box office.