Why did Dredd fail at the box office Essay.

Essay - Why did Dredd fail at the box office? 

The film Dredd was released in 2012; then film was a viewing rating of 18, meaning only 18 years+ could go and visit the film in cinema. The rating score that Dredd received was 7/10 from IMDb and on the Rotten Tomatoes website it received a 6.5/10 score rating. The original budget that the producers received before production was $35,000,000, but it has ended up as a huge failure, only receiving $13,401,683 gross profit back. This outlines that the low budget film was never a success and in this essay I will proceed to argue why Dredd was a failure and use evidence and a comparison to another comic book character set film such as The Avengers.

In pre-production the budget was $35million making this film a low budget movie, the Dredd movie was expected to make its money back easily as any film hopes and expects, but compared to The Film Avengers which has been a very successful comic book character set film the budget has been very low due to The Avengers having a very high budget of $220million. This will have had a huge impact on many different techniques they used to produce the film, stars included, director, producer(s) and the source of material.

The low budget defiantly had an impact on the stars that were featured in the movie, in this film the main characters are played by members who aren’t in massive parts in previous films such as: Karl Urban who has also been featured in the films; Star Trek: Into Darkness, The Bourne Supremacy. Olivia Thirlby who has also been featured in the filmsJuno, No Strings Attached and The Darkest Hour. Final cast member Lena Headleywho has also been featured in the films 300, The Purge and The Game of Thrones. When we compare these members to The Avengers it really shows a different standard of acting and recognizable actors to fans because this movie featured the actors: Robert Downey Jr; who plays the character Iron Man, Chris Evens; who plays the character Captain America. Chris Hemsworth is also featured in the movie; he plays the character Thor, Jeremy Renner; who plays the character Hawkeye and finally the actor Samuel L. Jackson; who plays the character Nick Fury. Robert Downey Jr. was paid a large amount of $50million to be featured in the film The Avengers and the actors Hemsworth, Evans, Renner and Ruffalo were paid a smaller amount of     $2-3million with bonuses and then the actors Jackson and Johansson who earned double the above actors; receiving $4-6million. This equals in a maximum of $74million from the movies pre-production budget just on the above the above characters but they still had others to pay. Comparing this to the characters in Dredd; it is a massive difference due to the producing of the film Dredd being less than the amount they paid one actor for being part of the movie The Avengers. This helps represent it was going to be a slight struggle for Dredd to earn its money back because the main characters were nowhere near close in comparison of fame such as Robert Downey Jr. is always a main character in all of his appearances such as the Iron Man Trilogy or Sherlock Holmes and Karl Urban who has never appeared as a main character before in major films such as he was around third most important character in the film’s Star Trek and Bourne Supremacy.

The director of the film also had a huge impact on the failure of the film. The film director of Dredd was Pete Travis; Travis has also directed the films: Vantage Point, Omagh and Endgame. These films are also low budget films that haven’t ever been known for huge success. But on the other hand Joss Whedon the director of The Avengers has been hugely successful as he directed one of the most known PG films made since 1995 which was Toy Story. This could outline that Travis will have had an impact on the failure of the film due to the less experience in producing hugely successful films. This may then relate back to the budget, due to the non-experience in successful films he may have been a cheap director to pick unlike Whedon which The Avengers producers would have had to pay a larger amount to direct for them.

The production companies that had part of production were DNA Films and another IM Global. DNA Films has never produced a massive film that has gone on to be worldwide known, but the other films they have produced have been: 28 Days Later, Never Let Me Go and many others. IM Global has also never produced a massive film that has gone on to be worldwide known, but the other films they have produced have been: Insidious, Blood and many others. These two companies have always made extreme-low budget films, between $1million to $15million movies. This may have had an effect on the failure due to the production companies not balancing out a $30million+ film before. The Avengers was produced by the companies Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures that have produced massive successful films such as: Iron Man trilogy, X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, Star Trek Into Darkness, and possibly big successful opportunity film Transformers: Age of Extinction. The producers will have had one of the biggest impacts as seen from this list of films from The Avengers Producers because their films are films that have had big success and are well known, but Dredd are small budget producers that aren’t well known. This impact would have mostly occurred from not being recognized for decent films which would have put the possible customers off watching it.

The source of material cannot have been much of an impact on Dredds failure as a film. This is because the original Judge Dredd Comics have been released since 1977 and have been successful and always made great sales. Also there was a new edition released that came out in 2012 giving a brief of the 2012 Dredd film which was to come. The original comic book is where the idea/material of the film came from, but it was changed and extras were added such as the slo-mo drug.

During the production of Dredd they filmed using a RED X Camera because the filmmakers wanted Dredd to have a realistic, visceral look and drew inspiration from crime and gangster films. The RED X Camera could have affected the unsuccessful result because the viewers may have found it hard to keep their eyes focused s the camera got close ups at certain angles and switched between clips.

The producers also featured all their Dredd screenings in 3D and named it a 3D film only. This defiantly would have affected the success because not all customers and viewers will have wanted to watch it in 3D because of it hurting the eyes or causing headaches, due to this Dredd will have loss many potential, losing them reputation as not being a multi viewable film and losing them money as customers weren’t paying to watch it.

The production of Dredd was taken place in South Africa, this again relates back to the pre-production budget because the production taking place in South Africa produces a much cheaper option than filming somewhere else such as the UK or US. This suggests that the quality of filming and set in the film could have been a higher standard if more money was put into where the film was action shot. This would have led to better quality film which may have had a huge impact on the DVD sales and word of mouth that followed about the film. The Avengers was filmed in many more likely to be expensive locations such as: Los Angeles, USA & Wright – Patterson Air Force Base, Fairborn, Ohio, USA. These locations were both featured in the movie and filming it in the real locations brought a more realistic feeling to the film which would have had a higher interest to the customers of the film.

The post production included the Distribution of Dredd was Entertainment Film Distributors who have also distributed the films Saw ll and Wedding crashers. The other Distributor of Dredd was Lions Gate Entertainment who have also distributed the films The Expendables 1 + 2 and Keith Lemon: The Film. This would have had an impact on how unsuccessful the film was because Lions Gate and Entertainment Films hadn’t distributed the most famous film but on the other hand The Avengers had one of the biggest distributors in the market; Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures who have also distributed the films: Toy Story 3, Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy and Iron Man 3. This will have made The Avengers more successful because they are experienced at distributing large, common, well known movies. One main category that affected Dredd during the distribution was the amount of screens it was released in. The problem was the film wasn’t released in enough cinemas/theatres so this reduced the opportunities for people to see this film on the big screens which in the future would reduce their profits or any earnings.