Dredd Essay

Why did Dredd flop at the Box Office?

                                                          

The action thriller film Dredd was released in 2012. The producers for this film were Alex Garland, Andrew MacDonald and Allon Reich. The studios involved in it were DNA Films and IM Global and the distributors were Lionsgate and Entertainment Film. The main stars in Dredd were Karl Urban, playing Judge Dredd, Lena Headey playing Ma-Ma and Olivia Thirlby who played Anderson.  The marketing strategies used to promote the film were teaser trailers, an interactive website and posters. The estimated box office figure was $36,000,000 which was less than the original budget resulting in the film ‘flopping.’

In my opinion one of the reasons why Dredd failed to succeed as expected at the box office is because the film did not comply with, in Mark Kermode’s opinion, the four ways to enable success which are: to have a newsworthy budget, to include spectacular visuals, to not be a comedy and to include ‘A’ list stars. Although Dredd was not a comedy and contained superb visuals the other two aspects were not met.  The estimated budget for Dredd was a rather unimpressive $45,000,000 as opposed to its rival film The Avengers who had a huge budget of over $200,000,000. Other films released within the same space of time are films such as ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, ‘Skyfall’ and ‘The Amazing Spiderman’ which were all box office successes. A ‘newsworthy budget’ is anything above $100,000,000, which Dredd was not. The main reason for the budget being so small is because there were no A list stars involved in the film.

The Avengers included ‘A’ list stars such as Robert Downey Jr who is well known for his roles in Sherlock Holmes and the Iron Man sequels. Downey has been nominated for several awards including two Oscars, and has won three Golden Globe awards, one being for ‘Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical’ in the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes’. Downey is a well know and very well respected ‘A’ list star and has been nominated for an estimated 58 awards. On the other hand  Karl Urban, the lead in Dredd, is not so well known and has only been nominated for an estimated 12 awards,  the majority of which are cast related such as the BSFC award for ‘Best Assembled Cast’ for the cast of the well known film Star Trek. Urban is not classed as ‘A-list’ and has had no main roles in any well known or popular films.

The certificate given for Dredd was 18 which is justified by the amount of violent and gore ridden scenes included in the film. I believe that due to the high certificate rating the opportunity to create tie-ins such as figurines and animated games was limited as the audience would be grown adults, not children or teens. In comparison The Avengers certificate was a 12A, aimed at a much younger audience there by providing every opportunity to capitalise on merchandise such as games and figures, boosting the status of the film and its profits. I also believe that the certificate rating correlates with the marketing opportunities: as the film is an 18 the times at which it can be publicised are restricted to eliminate every possibility of an under 18 year old seeing trailers that are considered to be in appropriate for them. Owing to this, the trailers could only be show on the television after a certain time in the evening, if at all.

This film was a remake of the 1995 film starring the A list star Sylvester Stallone. Through researching this film I discovered that this also failed at the box office. Even though the film starred an undoubtedly famous actor. The budget for this film was higher than the 2012 remake, at an estimated $70,000,000, and made a mere total profit of just over $7,000,000. The first thing that came to mind after reading about this film was why the producers decided to make a remake of a film that performed so badly at the box office. As this film starred Stallone, a top ranking A List star, I can only imagine how high expectations must have been, which makes the failure even more surprising to me. 

The film was originally going to be released in 3D alone but due to the poor reception, was then granted 2D viewing. In my opinion the fact that this film was only released in 3D to begin with was another reason why it didn’t reach the targeted profit. With it only released in 3D this limits where the film can be seen as not all cinemas worldwide are equipped with the appropriate technology.

The film was based on the comic book series Judge Dredd which isn’t as famous and well known as those included in The Avengers. The Avengers consists of well known comic book characters, which all have their own separate films, coming together as a team. The film includes characters such as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain American and Hawkeye, all of which are unquestionably renowned. I think that the main reason for the success of The Avengers is because all characters included all have a well known background and all feature. Not only does The Avengers comply with Mark Kermode’s ‘list of four’ of using a newsworthy budget, A list stars, Visual effects and is not a comedy, but the film has such a detailed background that almost everyone is familiar with it. The critical rating for The Avengers was an impressive 92% or 8/10. Dredd also had good reviews with a 7/10 but due to the fact that the original story is not as renowned worldwide as the famous Marvel characters I believe that it had a huge part to play within the failure of the film.

In conclusion, Dredd flopped due to the producers not following the four rules set by Mark Kermode: having A list stars, a newsworthy budget, superb effects and to not be a comedy. With the original film failing surely the producers would consider what they could do differently to avoid a similar outcome.