Shooting completed for Judge Dredd

[The Sherman Kid]

I can just picture a crowd of sour faced, disapproving nerds, arms folded, shaking their heads and muttering, "come on then you highly experienced, professional film-makers, it's about time you showed us, the REAL FANS, what you've been up to, don't you think?"

Er, no. Just wait and let the meticulously planned release schedule run it's course. They know what they're doing. You don't have the first idea.

That's not the only purpose of pre-publicity, though. It's not just about throwing out tidbits to keep the fans happy, it's about building a buzz and cultivating interest among people who would otherwise be unaware that a new Judge Dredd movie is on the way. You know, so it doesn't sink like a stone upon release.

What concerns me is, less than a year to go till the release date, and does anyone in the "real" world(outside of forums and so on) actually know this movie is happening yet? If not, that could be a problem.

Why would they care? It's 'only' Judge Dredd, most people are only vaguely aware of the character and, as you say, the film's not out for nearly a year. The film makers have a marketing budget and they need to make every penny count. If they 'shoot their load' too soon, they won't have anything left for the big event.

A tightly focused burst of marketing shortly before the release of this relatively low budget film is the most effective way of selling it to Billy Punter. "HEY YOU!!! LOOK AT THIS JUDGE DREDD FILM!!! IT'S OUT NEXT WEEK!!! GO SEE IT!!!"

The only people who will see any publicity shots on the internet are NERDS like you and me who already know the film is coming out.

'HEY YOU GO SEE JUDGE DREDD!!', marketeer
'WHO'S JUDGE DREDD?, JOE PUNTER 1
'IT'S THAT GUY WHO USED TO BE IN THE PROFESSIONALS WHO WEARS A WIG IN COURT', JP2
'REALLY?THEY MADE A FILM OF THAT?' JP1
'YUP'
'NAH, LET'S SEE TRANSFORMERS 6'
'RIGHT WITH YER'
It's gonna take a lot of TIME and effort to pierce Joe Punters skull as to what Judge Dredd is all about -I wish them luck

[Steve Green]

Good job it's just called 'Dredd' then.

[blackmocco]

'HEY YOU GO SEE JUDGE DREDD!!', marketeer
'WHO'S JUDGE DREDD?, JOE PUNTER 1
'IT'S THAT GUY WHO USED TO BE IN THE PROFESSIONALS WHO WEARS A WIG IN COURT', JP2
'REALLY?THEY MADE A FILM OF THAT?' JP1
'YUP'
'NAH, LET'S SEE TRANSFORMERS 6'
'RIGHT WITH YER'
It's gonna take a lot of TIME and effort to pierce Joe Punters skull as to what Judge Dredd is all about -I wish them luck

It's really not. Much as I hate to burst the bubble, the average Joe Punter won't be going to see Dredd. It's not going to be fucking Bridesmaids or The English Patient, is it? It's an R-rated action/sci-fi movie adaptation of a (outside of the UK) moderately well-known comic character that already comes with very, VERY negative baggage as a previously failed franchise attempt.

I mean, why do you think they're making it the low-budget route in the first place? Because they know it's a very limited and specific audience and they need to give it the best chance they can for it to be successful. An aggressive marketing campaign that punches people in the face two months before it opens makes far more sense to me if you want to pique people's interest.

[JOE SOAP]

It's not a bad thing to keep in mind that another generation are coming of age since the last effort in '95 who know little of it. It's taken this long for another try at Dredd for a reason.

[vzzbux]

'HEY YOU GO SEE JUDGE DREDD!!', marketeer
'WHO'S JUDGE DREDD?, JOE PUNTER 1
'IT'S THAT GUY WHO USED TO BE IN THE PROFESSIONALS WHO WEARS A WIG IN COURT', JP2
'REALLY?THEY MADE A FILM OF THAT?' JP1
'YUP'
'NAH, LET'S SEE TRANSFORMERS 6'
'RIGHT WITH YER'
It's gonna take a lot of TIME and effort to pierce Joe Punters skull as to what Judge Dredd is all about -I wish them luck

I am sure more people know Judge Dredd as a character than Judge John Deed.
I only know about Deed because I just googled it using The Professionals as a base.



V

[Michaelvk]

I'm pretty confident that it'll do reasonably well.. Considering the swathe of marginal Marvel characters that're getting their own movies these days, Dredd can't do much worse, though it's Robocop level of violence will probably make it more of a home viewing movie. My predictions are it won't be stellar at the box office, but will do pretty well in the rental/sales area.

I could be wrong though.. I did say Outcasts would do well too..

[weehawk]

I'm pretty confident that it'll do reasonably well.. Considering the swathe of marginal Marvel characters that're getting their own movies these days, Dredd can't do much worse, though it's Robocop level of violence will probably make it more of a home viewing movie. My predictions are it won't be stellar at the box office, but will do pretty well in the rental/sales area.

Agreed. Much like "The Punisher"(2004). Because of the dvd sales of that film, a sequel got greenlighted.

[Toni Scandella]

If they get the tone right, it's going to be an even harder sell.

Action fims require a hero, if they are to follow the general action film template, and Dredd isn't one.

The closest film to it, Robocop (which I am in a minority in thinking has aged really badly) - had Murphy's motivation and ultimate humanity well established - what happened to him demanded justice, so his actions became heroic as he overcame not just the gang who left him for dead, but also the corrupt corporation who turned him into 'the ultimate law enforcement machine'

Dredd will be going around with his motivation being upholding a police state and maintaining a status quo that keeps the citizens firmly in their place.  That's quite a hard sell, for a movie audience expecting a sci-fi costumed superhero type cop film, as there won't be any movement towards making the City or the Judges more humane - which would compromise the character and make a sequal more difficult.

I think the concept of Dredd is fascinating, but hard to get right in a film.

I sound like a certain troll, I'd best shut up...

[James Stacey]

depends how much of it is done through Andersons pov I guess (not having read the script) If she is a sympathetic character and its seen from her angle it could work. Dredd has always generally worked best when hes not the main focus.

[JOE SOAP]

If they get the tone right, it's going to be an even harder sell.

Action fims require a hero, if they are to follow the general action film template, and Dredd isn't one.

Was Dirty Harry a hero, was he sympathetic?, not in any substantial terms he wasn't. I've said this before and I still think it's true: If you want people to support a certain character, make those/the antagonists he is against, be worse -maybe morally- than he, that way you can establish certain moral parameters in the film which you can stick to and bend as you wish with substantial reason.


Antoher great recent example is the Way of the Gun, two completely amoral characters -with no back stories presented- are the centre of the film. There are very few 'likeable' people in it yet you know who to get behind and there's a point to all the violence to boot. The same holds for all Sergio Leone films and most of Pekinpah's too. Who in the Wild Bunch is the average hero? The 'sypathetic hero' concept is a hangover from bad/dated 80's Hollywood bullshit peddled by unsuccessful writers and execs who know fuck-all but wish to force their demographic formulas on the industry. Amoral central characters are a film staple going back to film noir and before. That's what an anti-hero is. It's just people have forgotten that such films have been made and were successful before the 80's, the conservative American mainstream does not decide what people 'like'.

Dredd will be going around with his motivation being upholding a police state and maintaining a status quo that keeps the citizens firmly in their place.  That's quite a hard sell, for a movie audience expecting a sci-fi costumed superhero type cop film, as there won't be any movement towards making the City or the Judges more humane - which would compromise the character and make a sequal more difficult.

Considering the amount of dystopian sci-fi films and amoral cop films that pepper the history of film, the only hard sell will be if Dredd is a bad film, if it's not, it'll hold it's own. Trying to make Dredd a 'hero' in the '95 film was a complete disaster, there is plenty of room for a real character like Dredd in film-space. Serioulsy, at least in 'comic' terms, was Dredd a hard sell for young 'uns back in the 70's/80's when we all hardly understood the concept of hero types and what Dredd meant? No because it was still entertaining seeing Dredd do what he did every week.

[Mardroid]

depends how much of it is done through Andersons pov I guess (not having read the script) If she is a sympathetic character and its seen from her angle it could work. Dredd has always generally worked best when hes not the main focus.

That's a good point.

I think some of the burden will also be on Lena Headey as Mama, and the actors playing the other villains too. To sell a hard character like Dredd in a somewhat heroic light, the villains need to be even nastier pieces of work. That's not to say the villains can't be three dimensional characters we can empathise with in some ways too, providing questions concerning the state that helped create them, but there should be a difference in morality between the killers on both sides. Dredd, the killer with a code, and the twisted characters on the other side.

[EDIT- Oops, Joe Soap covered this already. In my defence I started this post before seeing his!]

I certainly don't think leaving the audience with questions concerning the morality of Dredd and his world would necessarily be a bad thing either though. Some of the best stories make you think a bit, question the 'hero'. Take Deckard from Blade Runner as an example. Or Jess from Triangle (a film I saw recently). Very different characters from Dredd (and each other) obviously but morally ambiguous, yet I think we can sympathise with them somewhat.

[blackmocco]

depends how much of it is done through Andersons pov I guess (not having read the script) If she is a sympathetic character and its seen from her angle it could work. Dredd has always generally worked best when hes not the main focus.

That's a good point.

I think some of the burden will also be on Lena Headey as Mama, and the actors playing the other villains too. To sell a hard character like Dredd in a somewhat heroic light, the villains need to be even nastier pieces of work. That's not to say the villains can't be three dimensional characters we can empathise with in some ways too, providing questions concerning the state that helped create them, but there should be a difference in morality between the killers on both sides. Dredd, the killer with a code, and the twisted characters on the other side.

I certainly don't think leaving the audience with questions concerning the morality of Dredd and his world would necessarily be a bad thing either though. Some of the best stories make you think a bit, question the 'hero'. Take Deckard from Blade Runner as an example. Or Jess from Triangle (a film I saw recently). Very different characters from Dredd (and each other) obviously but morally ambiguous.

Well Dredd's not morally ambiguous as far as he's concerned himself. Haha! He considers his duty to be completely moral, certainly in his early years in 2000ad and, I would assume, in this movie. But that's the great thing with Dredd's world. It doesn't matter for the most part how much of a bastard he is. As long as his villains are worse than him, he becomes the hero by default...

[Mardroid]

Well Dredd's not morally ambiguous as far as he's concerned. Haha!

I dunno. I think sometimes even he questions his decisions, especially now he's older.

Besides, this time, it's us the audience who are the judges!

[blackmocco]

Well Dredd's not morally ambiguous as far as he's concerned. Haha!

I dunno. I think sometimes even he questions his decisions, especially now he's older.

Besides, this time, it's us the audience who are the judges!

For sure in more recent years, but not back through his early days which I would assume this movie's channelling.

[JOE SOAP]

I think some of the burden will also be on Lena Headey as Mama, and the actors playing the other villains too. To sell a hard character like Dredd in a somewhat heroic light, the villains need to be even nastier pieces of work. That's not to say the villains can't be three dimensional characters we can empathise with in some ways too, providing questions concerning the state that helped create them, but there should be a difference in morality between the killers on both sides. Dredd, the killer with a code, and the twisted characters on the other side.

[EDIT- Oops, Joe Soap covered this already. In my defence I started this post before seeing his!]

Doesn't matter, I've said all of this before over the years on multiple threads and discussions when people still got caught up in and struggled with the bullshit 'hero' argument when it was never really a problem in the first place, it was a phantom argument introduced by the writers and producers of the '95 film who wanted a diffrent type of character in the first place but were parasites on a potentialy lucrative property.