Dredd - Box Office

[JOE SOAP]

Joe, I noticed on your link that they state the budget is $72,000,000. Given that we have all been discussing a budget of 35-45 million dollars (and imdb estimates it to be $50m), do you think that figure is correct?

It's budget + some marketing figuring (worldwide).

[The Bissler]

Grud on a greenie, the marketing costs almost as much as the film did to make?!  Outrageous!

[PreacherCain]

Grud on a greenie, the marketing costs almost as much as the film did to make?!  Outrageous!

That's pretty normal over the last decade or more, no? It's why a film needs to recoup twice its budget in order to see profit.

[Stan]

Well depending on how your post is read they technically need to make 4 times their budget, since the cinemas take around half.


Are we throwing distributors in too?

[JOE SOAP]

That's pretty normal over the last decade or more, no? It's why a film needs to recoup twice its budget in order to see profit.

No, marketing's a separate budget. A film needs to recoup twice its budget generally because theatres take around half of box-office.

[Beaky Smoochies]

How do you know the production budget for Dredd was $35m specifically, Joe sir, and if it was, what was the remaining $10m of the overall $45m budget spent on, the 3-D process? 

That got me thinking, if Dredd is certain to make it's budget back (pre-sales + theatrical + home release) for Reliance, wouldn't they see fit to go for a sequel if they make a nice little profit off it?  If they drop the 3-D for the sequel (because I think it's fair to say that it hurt Dredd at the box-office a lot more than it helped it ultimately), grant the DNA Films' team another $45m budget, put the full weight of said budget behind production values alone, and go with the pro-democracy terrorism/Cursed Earth (the latter of which could be filmed in neighboring Namibia) storyline that Alex Garland has alluded to recently, they absolutely could pull off such a sequel that is totally achievable within their budgetary resources, would provide the audience with a pretty definitive representation of the full strata of Dredd's world onscreen, and would more than comfortably fit in with the more grounded, gritty, heightened-realistic approach to this current and utterly superior adaptation, methinks anyway...

[shaolin_monkey]

How do you know the production budget for Dredd was $35m specifically, Joe sir, and if it was, what was the remaining $10m of the overall $45m budget spent on, the 3-D process? 

'Cos Alex told him, I suspect!

[IndigoPrime]

That got me thinking, if Dredd is certain to make it's budget back (pre-sales + theatrical + home release) for Reliance, wouldn't they see fit to go for a sequel if they make a nice little profit off it?

Realistically, it's probably too much of a risk. Although some sequels are break-out hits of a sort (Hellboy 2, say), many don't fare any better than their predecessors. With Dredd, the movie might, as with Serenity, make a decent amount of cash on rental/shiny discs, but that points instead to long-term cult status and not another film.

[JOE SOAP]

How do you know the production budget for Dredd was $35m specifically, Joe sir,

'Cos Alex told him, I suspect!

True.

[radiator]

That got me thinking, if Dredd is certain to make it's budget back (pre-sales + theatrical + home release) for Reliance, wouldn't they see fit to go for a sequel if they make a nice little profit off it?

If you invested £1000 in a business, then after 3 years, you got back £1050, I think you probably wouldn't invest in that business again.

As I understand it, most movies eventually break even, but unless they make a significant profit they are considered to be a waste of time from an investment point of view.

With Dredd, the movie might, as with Serenity, make a decent amount of cash on rental/shiny discs, but that points instead to long-term cult status and not another film.

I suspect this is correct - even if Dredd goes on to be the cult classic we assume it will be, and continue to pay out years from now (as happened with for example John Carpenter's The Thing, a flop on it's cinematic release), by then it will probably be too late to make a sequel, for numerous reasons.

As in the case of a Firefly/Serenity continuation, it would probably be financially viable to do now, but it won't happen because most of the cast and crew have long since moved onto other projects.

I imagine Anthony Dod Mantle in particular isn't going to be worrying about getting work for the forseeable.

[Gonk]

Isn't Dredd a different kettle of fish compared to The Thing? A bit more than a film? It's a name synonymous with 2000ad...and vice versa.

The next two films that have been suggested sound just right, I hope they manage to pull it off financially .Surely a project like Dredd is a labour of love, not simply a quick buck.

I would love a trilogy of Dredd films in the style of the last one.
The next one could incorporate a lot of war scenes, some where betwwen "Block Mania" and "Apocalypse War" with Dredd leading a crack troop of Judges against pro democracy fighters led and organised by foreign agents with access to nukes.

The last film could see a shattered vastly under populated Meg1 coming under threat by the Death Cult Judges who move through what's left of the city like spectres, trying to erase the last of the survivors, they could even be cannabilistic? Only Dredd can stop them.

[IndigoPrime]

The next two films that have been suggested sound just right, I hope they manage to pull it off financially .Surely a project like Dredd is a labour of love, not simply a quick buck.

The film industry doesn't work like that, and a Dredd sequel without the first film doing astonishingly well on rental (and I'm talking way beyond Serenity) would be in danger of becoming some kind of vanity project, along with being a huge financial risk. It's one thing taking a calculated punt, like the studio did with the second Hellboy flick, when the first did reasonably well, but Dredd doesn't look likely to break even in theatres, and that's the problem.

It's a pity the weekend numbers were against Dredd in the US, because it clearly did well mid-week. Even scraping back into the top ten last week would have been helpful.

[radiator]

Yeah, that's a naive view. Movies are a business.

People HAVE made a Dredd movie just for the love of it, they have invested time and money on it with no prospect of financial inumeration. It's a fan film, and it looks good.

[Gonk]

It looks good...very, very true. Too good to be true, almost. It can't stand on it's own as a one off though, me personally, I have The Naked Lunch as my favourite cultish film. Dredd requires serialisation, like the strip.

[MR. ELIMINATOR]

True that movies are a business and all, but I think being an independent production gives it more chance of a sequel then a hollywood franchise.

The people funding this film must have known it was a risk financially, but for some reason they went for it, and I like to believe it was because it sounded really good. If they don't make their money back, instead of cutting their losses they could do another one? The first film was massively well received, and raised awareness, so already you are more likely that the sequel would perform better. If they did it for a smaller or similar budget too, and rebellion got on the case of making a video game to help hype it up before release, I think it would be the hit this one deserved to be.

Also don't get Lionsgate to promote it.

Wishful thinking I know, but I don't think it's too crazy to think a sequel could still happen. Even if it takes several years before they even start trying to make another one, that's still cool with me.

It was 7ish years between Terminator 1&2 and Alien & Aliens, and like 15 years or something between Escape from New York and L.A. Probably lots of other examples but that's just a few that came to mind.