Why was Dredd a box office failure ?

Dredd was originally a fictional character that appeared in a graphic novel by the name of Judge Joseph Dredd in 1977. In these graphic novels Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future. Judge Dredd is one the UK's best known comics published by DC comics. In 1995 the first Dredd film was released. It was an American film that stared Sylvester Stallone this film proved to be a complete failure because Dredd was virtually unheard of in the States as the comic books was only released in the UK and the people of America had very little attraction in going to watch Dredd at the cinema. The 1995 version of Dredd was slated by critics throughout the whole of America. In 2012 the latest version of Dredd was produced by  British - South African producers at DNA film studios in synergy with IM global and reliance entertainment.

The 2012 version of Dredd was seen to be a huge box office failure as the budget spent was 45 million dollars but yet Dredd only made 36.5 million dollars so Dredd made a reported loss of 8.5 million dollars. Filming began for Dredd on the 12th November 2010 in cape Town the filming took place in South Africa because it was cheaper to film over there, the film was shot in 3D using RED MX and Phantom Flex high speed cameras. Some 2D elements were converted into 3D in the post production stage as it was also cheaper to do this too. One of the first reasons why I believe Dredd was a box office failure was purely because of the the fact that it was filmed in 3D. Dredd was primarily shown in the UK in 3D. 2D screenings were nortoriously limited as the distributor denied cinema's requests for 2D prints, by the distrubutor dening the majoirty of 2D screenings it limited the audience as many people do not like watching 3D films as the viewing quality is effected not only that many cinemas do not like showing 3D films as they are more expensive to run with less audience appeal.

Every week a superhero movie is on CGI menus this is because we can now make superhero movies look more life like and realistic as the quality of film is much better than ever before, this could contribute to the fact that Dredd was a box office failure as what would distinguish Dredd between other superhero movies?. The 2012 film Dredd had a budget of 45 million and contained actor Karl Urban as the main star. Karl Urban is considered to be a famous actor but hes not a worldwide known figure, like the cast from Batman the Dark knight rises that had an estimated estimated budget of $250 million dollars and contained world wide famous actors such as Christian bale, Michael Cain, Morgan freeman, Anne Hathaway. When Christian Bale starred as batman his face was revealed numerous times as one of the reasons why people would go to watch the new Batman is becuase of the Cast. Yet in Dredd Karl Urban's face was not revealled once. Batman made $1,084,439 from box office compared to Dredd who lost $8.5million dollars, This is because Batman put the money on screen The Dark Knight rises contained a variety of different special effects with explosions and CGI was also used to add to the special effects. whereas Dredd contained very few special effects and the special effects used didn't really have the same effect as dredd was filmed in 3D and Director Christopher Nolan in Batman filmed with IMAX Cameras which are the highest quality cameras that the film industry currently has as they are a bigger camera with a bigger lense on a state of the ark frame These are all reasons why Batman Made money and Dredd was a box office failure because Dredd simply didnt provided enough intrest from the viewers on screen.

Another main reason why I believe Dredd was a box office failure is because it did not appeal to the four quadrants, the four quadrants are 4 categories relating to age and gender. Hollywood directors believe that in order to make a film profitable it needs to be relatable to each of the four quadrant Dredd did not do this. The majority of the modern day superhero movies that have made a considerable amount of profit have all been rated PG such as Spiderman, The Avengers movie, Batman this is because American film companies such as universal try to make films diverse to all ages so all different age groups of people can go see it from families to eager comic book fans. Not only this but if you release the film as a 12A or a PG13 then the amount of money that you can make in marketing is a considerable amount more as you can make children's toys , Lego figures, children's games it can be put onto happy meal boxes whereas Dredd was an 18 which meant that the audience it appealed to was more restricted, it would only appeal to adults and as the main character wasn't a good looking man which contained sex appeal as you couldn't see his face so it wouldn't attract a female audience so many couples wouldn't go and see it which left only men that would be mostly likely to go and see it and very few men go to the cinema together to watch 18 rated films which leaves only the comic book fans that had a genuine interest in going to see it.

Dredd was made to compete with the US comic book films but this proved to be a bad mood as Dredd already had a bad reputiation in the Us as the 1995 version of Dredd was slated for many reasons, not only this but The Amercian films that have been adapted from comic books such as Avengers and Spiderman and Batman are all produced by the biggest film companies in the world like Warner Brothers who have a strong reputation for making sucessful movies so this is really another reason amoung the many on why Dredd was a box office failure. To contribute to this big film companies always have well known expirenced film directors who have great sucess with producing films, for example Warner brother produced spiderman and the director of spiderman was a well known sucessful directorer who had already acheived sucess in the movie industry his name was Marc Webb. The Director of Dredd was fairly new to the film industry and hadn't really produced any sucessful films before, he was more comofortable with directing tv programmes such as the Bill which is possibly why Dredd was criticised by critics for lacking creativity This also contributed to the fact that Dredd was a box office failure.

Many Uk films struggle to be as sucessful as all time American films quite simply because of the budget and resources they have. America is the most sucessful country in the world that has produced some of the best films the world has ever watched. The production companies in the UK are alot smaller than the American production companies for example film 4 and pathe are tiny film companies compared to warner brothers. Although british film companies are small there are still british films that have managed to make a considerable amount of profit and have been praised by film critics an example of this is Slumgdog Millionare produced by pathe films slumdog millionare had a budget on £15 million pounds but made £377,910,544 at box office this is because the film was cleverly directed and produced and appelead to all 4 film quadrants although slumdog millionare made a lot of money they are bigger budget American films that have made over a billion pounds Batman the dark knight rises being a prime example of this. American films produced in holywood are likely to make money if they appeal to the the correct audience and the film is cleverly produced and directed with a high enough budget somewhere in the margin of $100million dollars. Whereas low budget british films are likely to make money if they also appeal to the right audience and are cleverly directed and produced but there will always be execptions in both British and American films.