Why did Dredd flop at the box office?

The Superhero Judge Dredd was originally shown in the comic book 2000AD and would later be
made into the first film in 1985, directed by Danny Cannon and starring Sylvester Stallone as the
main character. In 2012, a new Dredd film was released, directed by Pete Travis, which featured
fairly unknown film stars such as Karl Urban (Judge Dredd) and Olivia Thirlby (Anderson). However
the film was considered a flop especially due to its poor statistics at the box office. It only received
$41m from a very small budget of $45 million and was heavily slated by critics for not being British
enough. In theory it never really stood a chance against other large budget superhero films, for
instance The Avengers which had a budget of $200 million. Although a small budget wasnt the only
reason for its failure, many other factors contributed towards the flop of Dredd.

Before the film was even released, many had already lost interest due to the sheer lack of big names
involved. For example, Pete Travis was most well-known before the film for Vantage Point which
came out in 2008 and only took a box office profit of just over $38 million. The film was produced by
Alex Garland, Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich, again fairly unknown names. Production
companies involved were DNA films, IM Global and Reliance Entertainment which are three
recognised names and this may have contributed to its high pre-release expectations. Unknown film
stars can often be the downfall of a film; this is the case for Dredd. Karl Urban initially announced
that he would play the lead role at comic-con (the largest pop culture event on the east coast) and
this would have attracted some audience who may have known him from his previous roles in Star
Trek and Lord of The Rings. Alongside him was rookie Judge Anderson played by Olivia Thirlby who,
before Dredd, was fairly unknown. The combination of fairly Z-list film stars and producers lead to its
eventual downfall.

The aim of production was to fulfill the films potential with the limited budget it had. This was
achieved by carefully selecting what they were going to spend money on, for example, all of the
films footage was shot in Cape Town, South Africa at Cape Town Film Studios. The project consisted
of a majority of Cape Town crew members and around forty crew from the UK. This saved roughly
25% of total production costs and therefore leaving more money available for other sections of the
films production. Dredd was filmed primarily in 3D and some of the cameras used include the RED
MX, SI2K and Phantom Flex high-speed cameras. These cameras allowed some footage to be filmed
in extreme slow motion and this would be used when a character was under the influence of the
Slo-mo drug. Alex Garland said that the aim of this would be to question whether the effect could
make the films violence beautiful. An issue that could possibly have affected the films editing
process was that it had been reported that Travis, the director, had been prohibited from taking part
in any of the editing following a creative disagreement between producers and executives. The
situation was eventually resolved however this could have played a vital part in the failure of Dredd
due to the disagreements in production.

The films marketing and distribution was poor, this was because of multiple reasons, one of which
being the absence of good advertisement, unlike most films where it is often shown in the media to
attract attention of their target audience. The decision for it to be shown in 3D only across the UK
had a large impact. It meant that those who did not have a cinema near them showing 3D films were
unable to watch the film therefore losing money through a lack of purchases. It also affected many
of the target market who may not enjoy watching 3D films and were put off by not having a 2D
option. Another major problem was the length of the film. It only lasts 95 minutes which is very
short compared to high grossing films such as The Amazing Spiderman. People who had the option
may have chosen Spiderman over Dredd because they wanted to get more for their money. Finally,
the films certificate of 18 excludes many young teenagers who would possibly have seen the film if it
had been certified a 12. Considering 14 21 year olds visit the cinema the most, the films certificate
potentially took away the opportunity for this aged audience to watch the film. Of course this would
have meant that a lot of the violence used to make the film would have to be cut out but this could
have brought in more money in the long term.

Due to the films small budget it would be unfair to categorise it with high grossing films with larger
budgets such as The Avengers which grossed a total of over $1.5 billion. However films have to make
double their budget to profit and Dredd hasnt yet made its original money back let alone profit. Due
to its release in 2012, it had to compete with other popular films such as Skyfall, The Dark Knight
Rises and The Avengers which are all within the top grossing films of all time. Unfortunately for
Dredd, it was released shortly after The Raid which was a very similar film. The two films would have
attracted the same target audience and consequently, Dredd would have missed out on a lot of
potential customers. Although The Raid only had a budget of $1.1 million, it grossed a total of $14.1
billion and therefore shows how competition within a genre of film can have major consequences on
how successful a film can be. So what was the underlining reason? Overall it was a collective of all
reasons including marketing, lack of big film stars, production and distribution to why Dredd was
such a flop at the box office.

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Louis Hopkins