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Mmmm... now I'm not a marketing guru or anything, but I'm not sure that releasing one photograph and not another would have made such a fundamental change to the box office performance of the movie.

True. The great posters that followed made little difference to people's pre-conceived notions.

Because........their pre-conceived notions had not been altered one jot from the 1995 debacle due to a terible marketing campaign.Hardly anything had been released in the previous 12 months . Using good quality material such as these photos would help alter that, lots of stuff like this should have been issued over a longer period of time to keep getting the message across that this film was different and was worth checking out.
It was irretrievably stupid just to sit on these photos, baffles me why they did.

Well, I don't know what to say. After all those months (years?) of crappy stolen shots and no publicity- which ultimately led to Dredd's crashing failure at the box office, we find out they had this. If that shot had been released at the start, along with a nice posed shot of Urban and the Lawmaster against a black background, the Internet would have gone mental. And for the right reasons this time. What an absolute waste and a massive pile of shit the marketing for Dredd was. It's enough to make a grown man cry.

SBT

THIS ^^^^^^^^  !! 

[Cover]

2000AD is pure brilliance and here comes along yet another Prog to prove it.

Cover Wonderful.This is the last time I will review a cover as I've said many times before,the quality is so consistently high its really a given

Dredd Been back on form for weeks now but on fire now.Great intro setting up the story liked that, I personally loved it.Dredds depression has returned, which I'm glad has not just been brushed aside as an issue. The fact is Dredd is now personally responsible for almost a billion deaths -the half a billion for East Meg One and 340 million that died in retaliation. It makes a mockery ,in many ways, of almost his entire career devoted to saving citizens, if he had doubts before over the 'Big Lie', well this kind of guilt is enough to sink him completely.
Patrolling through the weakage of the city hits home the new reality, as does Buell and other judges seemingly being shadows of their former selves.That must be [spoiler]Janus[/spoiler] and I hope it is. Can't wait to see where this goes and hope it has a very long run especially as the art is so utterly fantastically produced by the mighty Flint droid.

Simp Again Excellent.A brilliantly conceived and very well executed character whom I've alway enjoyed.Very glad to see Jack Point return.The art is very very good too, I like the way colour is subtley used to enhance the strip. More please.

ABC I'm enjoying this far far more than many previous ABC outings because I don't have to wade through wads of gobbledygook or hippesque themes that Pat likes too often to ram down our collectiuve throats. Simple and effective.

Brass Sun Instant Classic

Low Life Any strip that makes me laugh out loud is more than welcome.It has a talking great white sharp spouting business ethics -whats not to like?Dirty Frank is great fun .Has Aimme Nixon gone forever now?

Another top quality prog

[Dredd]

I think one of the main hinderences to Dredd was the shadow of 95. Many people I have spoken to have said they didn't go to see it because they were not keen on REMAKES or The first one was shit so didn't bother.




V

Without a doubt, I simply couldn't persaude some to see it because of it.

PS Vzzbux where is that quote from that you have?

I'll be going for my fith viewing Sherman, which I feel is just about acceptable. Will be a little emotional when it ends for the last time. My friend did consider buying a ticket or two onlne and not going just to bump it up.

Jeez how many spelling mistakes in my last post (hic  , kidding) Knew new by buy.

Anyway seen Dredd lots of times but your mate offering to buy without seeing -thats what I call a BIG fan, wow.

Still on in Norwich, one showing a night at the Odeon at 21:45 every day up to and including next Thursday............

Only 10 cinemas in the whole of the UK still showing Dredd I think.Now I know you're relatively knew here, and I hate to ask a favour...but if you just by 10 million tickets they'll be a pint in it for you 

There was this..

Yes, saw quite a few of these in megazines ,newspapers etc, but never actually saw them on any billboards (not saying it didn't happen, just I've not seen any)

Just to clarify the above, I am in no way critising Karl, Olivia, Alex or others directly attached to the film, as their personal marketing work, interviews, conferences etc was simply outstanding, they were all excellent ambassadors for the film.

Another thing was the media blackout on anything relating to the film all through production. I know there was a lot of gnashing of teeth about this at the time, but now all is said and done, I think it's safe to say they should have grabbed any bit of exposure that they could - they really should have released the production stills and teaser posters as soon as the leaked shots started surfacing to counter the negative buzz. It's fair enough to clamp down on leaks and protect your interests, but at least put out something.

I don't know whose idea this was (I get the impression that it was not DNA or the filmmakers themselves) but they were really shooting themselves doing things like shutting down the unofficial movie blog etc. I defended their strategy at the time, but it's safe to say that it backfired pretty badly - the end result being that hardly anyone was actually aware of the film on its release. With any luck a few heads are going to roll as a result.

I also defended the news blackout, reasoning that there must be a fantastic marketing campaign ready to roll out that nobody wanted to spoil. As it turned out, they had virtually nothing but a spoof news site and a couple of posters.

If they'd allowed CraveNoir's website to continue, and also released more pics/info, all of us here at the very least would have used the information to plug the film at every opportunity, if only on Facebook, Twitter and blogs. As it was, we had nothing to share with anybody.

They could have let the fans do half the marketing for this film but instead they locked us, and everybody else, out.

I did consistently say a YEAR before the film was out that Dredd needed to start putting out material, stills etc, set up a website -anything ,as like Lee says fans would do their work for them and diseminate this far and wide.The blackout was commented on by a few film reviewers and didn't give a good impression (esp after the Directorgate story broke) A short sharp marketing was prefered but Dredd had a lot of work to do to get Joe public involved and to distance itself from the 95 debacle.

When Xmas came Dredd wasn't even listed on many sites or in many newspapers as a 2012 film to look forward to -which to me at the time ,worried me , that TOLD the movers and shavers that they hadn't made their prescence felt.Movies needs HYPE and exposure however its generated.UK and US Premiers with lots of celebs would have been good (it couldn't have cost that much, free drinks usually gets enough letter-openers  ) -launching the film and showing everyone it was completely different to what they may have expected.

One question to our American cousins -did the US posters have lots of quotes and star ratings on them or were they simply blank.I never saw any posters here except the small ones in the cinemas.

If the product is sound ,which it certainly is, then despite all the other handicaps, the buck stops with marketing.

Couldn't agree more that the 3D actually suits Dredd very well (not a particular fan of 3D either), it works for this film and adds a lot to it.

Looked at the figures for Sunshine ,another by Alex Garland, a very good film that I bought.It did go off on a tangent in the second half to be a fight against a manic psychotic rather than survival (which I think would have served it better), but very enjoyable nonetheless. This tanked ,not gaining any wide release in the US for some strange reason unknown to me. A solid film with one of the best scores I have heard for a film, yet didn't come any where near fulifilling its potential at the box office. Good films dont always get what they deserve I guess.

I'm  wondering if your first paragraph has answered that?

Interesting Metacrtic comparison.

Dredd - Critics 59% Users 8.5
District 9 - Critics 81% Users 7.9

Yup it looks that way.

Interesting figures, you would have thought the user rating would have meant higher box office.Guess not.

Just looked at the figures for District 9, didn't realise it was  an R rating for the US, or the size of its US box office take -$115 million (opening was $37 million), different distibutor Tristar.

District 9 is a very good film, Dredd is a very good film, same rating, comparable budget, both unknown quantities (Dredd at least to most under 30 in the US), no big stars in either film (in terms of mass appeal). The 95 film and the 3D were factors ,as was the recession, but the difference in impact enormous.

The remaining gulf has to be the marketing ,where did District 9 go right where Dredd went wrong?

Went to the Odeon Cinema Manchester last night with the girlfriend to bid farewell to Dredd on the big screen.
It was inside a large arcade with lots of bars and resturants, which was handy as it was a late night showing (11.35pm).Had a meal followed by a coffee at Cafe Rouge by the entrance which provided impromptu outside entertainment in the form of a mass brawl.Watching from the safety of our table at the window and whilst delicately sipping our lattes as the fists flew,we witnessed six policemen with the help of no less than eight security men make four arrests (no judges appeared to be available), whilst a chorus of screaming women also made their helpful prescence felt.Three police cars and two police vans (one with exciting name 'Tactical Unit' emblazoned on the side ) turned up.
Alas ,all too soon, the play , disturbance was over and we finished our drinks and made our way to the cinema.

Headcount -14, snacks Nachos (extremely salty  ).Ah well it was good whilst it lasted and with this we said adieu to cinematic Dredd .

Dredd is still showing at the Odeon in Manchester, a venue I haven't visited..........yet.

LOL, Surely there aren't any cinemas in Britain you haven't seen this film in?

Somebody needs to keep our economy afloat 

Dredd is still showing at the Odeon in Manchester, a venue I haven't visited..........yet.