LUTTERWORTH COLLEGE MEDIA STUDIES

Why Did Dredd Flop At The

Box Office?
Media Studies

Nathan Beard
9/30/2014






Why Did Dredd Flop At The Box Office?
Dredd 3D is a science-fiction, action film that was released in 2012 and was directed by Pete
Travis. The producer for Dredd is the famous novelist, Alex Garland who is known for films
such as 8 Days Later...(2002), Sunshine (2007) and Never Let Me Go of which he was the
executive producer two years before Dredd. The film Dredd then went on to be released on
the 7
th
September 2012 in the United Kingdom and on the 21st September 2012 for the rest
of the world. Dredd is one of the most well-known and respected comic characters in Britain
the film was therefore set to be successful, it also had an Oscar winning cinematographer,
and going by the hype the film generated at Comic-Con earlier in the release year, it was
almost certainly going to become one of the most successful 2012 movies. These views
where backed up when the reviews started to be released, critics liked the film and wrote
good reviews. The fans also appreciated how Dredd was portrayed by karl Urban. So why
did the film flop, what was the problem?
In my mind there are various reasons for the failure of the movie, the first of these reasons
is the fact that it was limited financially; the budget for the film was $41milion, a small
amount in the film industry. Dredd had to compete for viewings with the Avengers; by
comparison this was a large budget film at $220milion, this emphasizes the extent of the
financial limitation Dredd had, as it turned out this was reflected when it came to box office
figures, with Dredd taking $41milion and the Avengers taking $1.518 billion. The financial
limitation meant that they could only afford to do certain things, for example they filmed it
in 3D and used a lot of slow-motion effects, a lot of the budget went on cameras, they then
had to cut costs so they did things like filmed in south Africa, in a relatively unknown studio
(cape town studios), with a relatively small set. Mega city ones skyline was built up by the
visual effects team using Johannesburg as a baseline structure. These cost cuts made Dredd
a fundamentally cheap film to produce, though it had to be with the budget they had.
Further evidence of financial restraint and a new point is that the marketing was very
limited (a few trailers, website and some posters), and a major part of it, the website The
Dredd Report was widely misunderstood. The marketing department thought it a good
idea to create a spoof of the Drudge Report the Drudge Report consists of an American
news aggregation website. Run by Matt Drudge with the help of Joseph Curl and Charles
Hurt, the site is primarily links users to stories from the United States and international
mainstream media about politics, entertainment, and current events as well as links to
many columnists. As it turned out not many people knew of the Drudge Report this meant
that the general public viewed the site as a poorly built website and thus it wasnt a success.
If you compare this to the Batman film The dark knight rises marketing website where
viewers had to tweet #TheFireRises in order for the site to reveal more information, this
created considerable hype and got people interested in what it was, this created hype for
the film, and therefore did well at the box office. Also used where two trailers, the first of
the pair, a sixty second video entitled Addicted gave viewers an insight into the use of the
slow-mo drug in the film it shows off the slow motion technique, this was done to attract
the people interested in film technique as this technique had not been used that much
before. The second trailer gave potential viewers more of an insight into the storyline of the
film. The trailers where good, the only problem was is that they werent as widely shown as
say the trailer for Joss Whedons Avengers (2012).
Another crucial factor in why the movie failed at the box office is that there were no A-List
stars to speak of, the movie has good actors but they arent regarded as A-List. For
example not many people will instantly know of Karl Urban whereas 9 out of 10 people will
have heard of Robert Downey Jr (from Avengers). Having A-List stars increases the easy in
which you will be able to market the film. If they had recruited at least one A-List star they
would have been able to promote that on the posters and in the trailers, this was done by
Marvel and Paramount pictures did when marketing the Avengers, it is the same scenario
with Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures and DC Entertainment when they came to market
Batman: The dark Knight Rises. Also lacking from the Dredd line-up is an A-List director,
these are also a big advantage when it comes to convincing the public to view a film.
Naturally people are more likely to attend a Spielberg film than Pete Travis (the director for
Dredd); this was a significant limitation for the marketing department. Throughout the
marketing campaign not much effort was put in to achieving a worldwide recognition for the
film.
One big problem is that Dredd isnt as widely known as characters from other comic based
films such as the characters from the Avengers and Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. This is
due to the fact that 2000AD comics arent as widely available as the Batman comics.
I personally think that one of the biggest problems they were going to face is that the Danny
Cannon directed Judge Dredd film from 1995 was a failure; this meant that the potential
audience thought that the Dredd (2012) film was going to be much the same. It is worth
noting however the 1995 film made its money back, I would think this is mainly down to
their use of A-List stars; this would have helped to attract audiences. Also a reason why it
made its money back and the 2012 version didnt is because they had a clean canvas
brand image wise, as in there were no Dredd films prior to it, so people didnt know what
to expect.
The special effects used in the film are sometimes regarded as unsuccessful for example the
slow-mo effect although it is good it is overused thus taking the edge and creativity away, it
gets repetitive fairly quickly, the use of 3D was widely praised as it was very good in the way
it was used, it was more of a feature and not just a gimmick, the problem with the 3D came
when they limited the film to only be seen in 3D, this caused them to narrow down the
amount of cinemas that showed the film and cut out a percentage of the audience as it is
approximated that around 12-20% of the audience cant physically see a 3D image due to
medical conditions.
The film is essentially a niche market proposition and thus independent cinemas are the
ones that are most likely to show the film but when the distributors wanted it to only be
shown in 3D and be shown for a certain period of time, the independent cinemas where the
ones that couldnt meet requirements, this meant that it was down to larger cinemas to
carry the film, but even that didnt go as planned due to a lot of the larger cinemas taking
the decision not to carry the movie.
Also a major factor in the failure of Dredd at the box office was that a film called "The Raid:
Redemption" had been released at a similar time to Dredd, the plots of the two movies are
very similar. This caused viewers that had been to see The Raid: Redemption to not take
an interest in Dredd as they felt that it would be boring as they already know the storyline
well. Also a factor was that the audience targeted for The Raid: Redemption was the art
appreciating niche market that Dredd attempted to target, which essentially meant that
most of Dredds primary audience had already seen the storyline. It was hugely unlucky for
the distributers of Dredd that they didnt get it out before Gareth Evans The Raid:
Redemption as that film made $14.1milion on a budget of only $1.1milion. In my opinion if
this had of been the case Dredd would maybe not have achieved its full potential but would
have at the very least done slightly better than it did.
Dredds certification of 18 was also a huge issue in screening the film, although the film is
based on the 1970s childrens comic book 2000AD, the violence in the comic and
subsequently the film would be and are in fact considered far too violent for children and
also young adults up to the age of 18. As the film received an 18 certificate it meant that the
film could no longer be a four-quadrant film. The lack of a four-quadrant film status means
that it cant be targeted at anyone as kids cant watch the film. For this reason the film was
primarily targeted at adults, specifically the male market and even more specifically the
market that consisted of people that appreciate film as an art and not just a form of
entertainment (this is due to the impressive camera work and effects that the general public
may view as repetitive and annoying. The violence also played a part in who to target the
film to. Due to the lack of the four-quadrant status Dredd could not reach the audience that
other superhero films launched at similar times could from the get go, one example of a film
that fits into the four-quadrant superhero film sector is Christopher Nolans The Dark Knight
Rises (also launched in 2012) which achieved a certificate of 12A. This ensured that the film
is a four-quadrant film and the results of this status where clear when the box office figures
the film were $1.08 billion gross on a budget of $250milion(approx.). A further example of a
successful four-quadrant superhero film is Marvels Avengers Assemble, released in 2012,
the film was directed by Joss Whedon. This film also achieved a 12A certification and
received an even larger gross sum of $1.518 billion (the budget for this film was $220
million). A lot of big studios(Marvel, Paramount and Warner Bros.) make sure their films
meet standards for and appeal to an audience where anyone can watch the film, this is what
allows these films to make such a big profit in comparison with Dredd, distributed by
Lionsgate and produced by DNA Films who made the decision to target a specific audience
and age bracket for their film. This is possibly the aspect that had the largest impact on
Dredds failure at the box office.
To conclude I believe that there where many reasons for Dredds failure at the box office
but I am going to focus in on what I would consider to be the primary one: the lack of the
all-important four-quadrant status due to the 18 certificate. This caused the target audience
to be significantly narrower than it should be for a movie of this type, it left Dredd with a
completely adult audience and although they were targeted the niche specialist art film
fans had mostly already seen The Raid: Reassemble another art type film with a
coincidentally similar storyline. So the fact that Dredd had a tiny amount of people in the
target audience combined with the lack of successful marketing and the absence of A-List
stars meant that Dredd could only do one thing at the box office, fail.