Dredd - Box Office

[judge devs]

Woops that quote came out wrong, my reply starts from the "I gotta disagree" part. But yeah, getting a big company to give you funding and give you a TV time slot it tough in its own right, just like making a film.

Ha, ha yeah gotta say I was looking at the top half of that and think I wrote that!

[TordelBack]

..the only lesson this has taught is....stay away from Comic con...

Rrright, so after you've made the film your secret to success is not to market it to the core audience and then everything will be okay?  I don't think ComicCon has anything to do with anything, and comparing Dredd as a film to Sucker Punch is ridiculous.  It's a great film, it just hasn't found its audience - yet.

Correlation, like the man says, is not causation.

[johnone]

I'm not  comparing Dredd to Sucker punch...(jeez Sucker Punch is bloody appalling).  I'm comparing the studios relying on comic con for  predictions of success.

Watchmen, Sucker punch, Cowboys and Aliens, Scott Pilgrim and Dredd all have the same problem, they got rave reviews at Comic Con.  Execs in the last few years have started to make the assumption that if a film is a hit at Comic Con then it will be a hit full stop and there is no need for further work, the last three years of box office failure has proven that is not the case. That Dredd was a hit at the Con and that was great but it was also preaching to the converted...and that section of the audience is I'm afraid a minority of the audience a film needs.

(by the way anyone saying Watchmen was a hit ,I'm sorry but thanks to the unique way Watchmen  was funded...it flopped at the U.S box office.)

Ahh yes Fisticuffs I should have used a paragraph but the question is do you disagree with what I wrote?

[TordelBack]

Execs in the last few years have started to make the assumption that if a film is a hit at Comic Con then it will be a hit full stop and there is no need for further work...

Okay, that point's a lot clearer than it was in your previous post.  You're stating that Dredd's performance on opening weekend is a result of 'execs' sitting on their laurels after ComicCon.  I'd say that's a serious misreading of a situation where advertising money was in short supply, and was spent judiciously.

[johnone]

In Dredds case , Comic Con success was not the problem! The fact it was independently financed and thus did not have the budget to promote was a far greater problem ....when you see that John Carter spent at least the whole of Dredd's budget on marketing alone you realise the mountain Dredd has to climb...the decision as well to have it shown mainly in 3D may not have been the best especially as an R rated film, (Here in ireland If you didn't want to see Dredd in 3D you would have to travel 180 miles to see a 2d version.)
   But this is all hindsight  as I said before the main problem simply is Dredd is not well known in the States outside of the Sylvester Stallone disaster. Hopefully the film will at least garner more positive attention to the character in the U.S market and hopefully allow Dredd on screen again at some point in the near future and that's not unrealistic , they are still planning a relaunch of the Punisher even though two punisher films flopped in the space of eight years.

As for Comic con I used the term studios plural...they along with fans have been guilty of assuming that Comic Con Success will equal box office triumph but if you look at the last three years it could not be further from the truth which leads to massive disappointment...as I stated before with the films I listed , all did great guns at Comic Con only to crash and burn at the box office..the question is where the hell did this kind of thinking come from?it's actually bad business....Dredd did exceptionally well ,it got brilliant reviews from the Con and what did that buzz actually produce in terms of box office....nothing! which is a genuine shame in Dredds case as I think it's brilliant....

[TordelBack]

As for Comic con I used the term studios plural...they along with fans have been guilty of assuming that Comic Con Success will equal box office triumph but if you look at the last three years it could not be further from the truth which leads to massive disappointment...

Yes, but I don't see how that is relevant to how the movie actually performs at the box office.  Our expectations as fans may be unrelaistically high, but how does that affect anything except ourselves?  If you're arguing that eventual fan disappointment in box office take is hightened by early success at ComicCon, then I agree: other than that I just don't see the link.  It strikes me that good word-of-mouth is always a good thing, so its worth a shot generating that with the grass-roots, but if the great unwashed don't want to see a film because they'd rather watch the same repetitive pablum they watch every week, then all the WOM in the world just isn't going to help.

As to publicity, yeah, Dredd was barely visible in Ireland (still haven't seen a poster), and I'm sure its infinitely more limited PR budget hasn't helped its cause.  By contrast I felt drowned in mainstream publicity for Sucker Punch and John Carter, and they underperformed spectacularly. 

[Goaty]

On coffees break from crazy bike riding in Amtersdam.

Honest, no matter what, we still got an awesome and quality Dredd film! Well done to the crew involve in the film, it's great production film!

And don't listen to any trolls!!!

Peace out!

[Michaelvk]

Well, all is not lost.. There's still the rest of the commonwealth. I know quite a few lads in South Africa are itching to see it, Australia knows Dredd, as does New Zealand.. 

[Keef Monkey]

Anyone heard any rumbles about the latest UK box office? Curious how this week went!

[PsychoGoatee]

Well, all is not lost.. There's still the rest of the commonwealth. I know quite a few lads in South Africa are itching to see it, Australia knows Dredd, as does New Zealand..

Just curious, I've never seen any sales numbers for 2000AD or anything, how do you know Dredd is notably popular down under? I've seen letters from there, but ditto for everywhere else.

[IndigoPrime]

I think what disappoints me most is that the general public is clearly happy for movies to continue targeting the lowest common denominator. You so often hear complaints about how action movies in particular have been heavily sanitised since the 1980s, in order to draw in more kids. In the UK, 18 movies became 12As, largely through the removal of blood (because a massive body count means nothing if you can't see the red stuff!), and themes were softened. Should Dredd not do terribly well, it showcases that this argument is also by and large niche, and that the majority happily eats up whatever's put in front of them.

For me, Dredd wasn't so much just about 2000 AD nor the property nor a bunch of people whose careers I respect creating a movie, but also a toe in the water as to whether cinema could take on such a movie without it being extreme (torture porn like Saw 3463, say) or part of an ongoing series.

As for the rest of the Commonwealth, here's hoping, but I can't imagine between SA, NZ and Oz they'll take in more than the UK did.

[NSFTM]

A considered response to the box office performance
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/dredd/22760/dredd-struggles-at-us-box-office

[Michaelvk]

Well, all is not lost.. There's still the rest of the commonwealth. I know quite a few lads in South Africa are itching to see it, Australia knows Dredd, as does New Zealand..

Just curious, I've never seen any sales numbers for 2000AD or anything, how do you know Dredd is notably popular down under? I've seen letters from there, but ditto for everywhere else.

Well, I do know that in SA there's more people than I expected who are familiar with 2000AD.. I am being somewhat presumptuous, I admit. I do reckon that Dredd resonates more with Aussies than it would with Americans..

[radiator]

I think what disappoints me most is that the general public is clearly happy for movies to continue targeting the lowest common denominator. You so often hear complaints about how action movies in particular have been heavily sanitised since the 1980s, in order to draw in more kids. In the UK, 18 movies became 12As, largely through the removal of blood (because a massive body count means nothing if you can't see the red stuff!), and themes were softened. Should Dredd not do terribly well, it showcases that this argument is also by and large niche, and that the majority happily eats up whatever's put in front of them.

For me, Dredd wasn't so much just about 2000 AD nor the property nor a bunch of people whose careers I respect creating a movie, but also a toe in the water as to whether cinema could take on such a movie without it being extreme (torture porn like Saw 3463, say) or part of an ongoing series.

Yep, this is exactly how I feel. I've commented on that Den of Geek piece a similar sentiment. Dredd bombing isn't just bad for Dredd - it'll have ramifications for British films and genre films in general. There was always more at stake here than the success or failure of one film.

Perhaps this signifies a broader trend in film - people like us have become used to being the centre of the universe for filmmakers, but maybe that's not the case any more?

Maybe the sad truth is simply that we're not that valued market any more, and the younger generation coming of age now - as hard as it is to swallow - genuinely prefers Resident Evil 5 and Underworld 4 and The Sweeney and Total Remake and House at the End of the Street to (in our eyes) more considered, sophisticated fare like Dredd, or Moon, or District 9, or Children of Men. They adore The Hunger Games, but would reject Battle Royale. It seems utterly bewildering to us, but only in the way our favoured pop-culture was to our parent's generation - we just don't understand how people can lap up this shit.

[PsychoGoatee]

Just curious, I've never seen any sales numbers for 2000AD or anything, how do you know Dredd is notably popular down under? I've seen letters from there, but ditto for everywhere else.

Well, I do know that in SA there's more people than I expected who are familiar with 2000AD.. I am being somewhat presumptuous, I admit. I do reckon that Dredd resonates more with Aussies than it would with Americans..
[/quote]

Does it? I mean maybe it does, I don't know. As you can tell from this topic, I do kind of question these things. And it's my personal opinion that Dredd's lack of success in America is not due to it not resonating with us, it's more to due with circumstances, timing, and how it's been done. If 2000AD was available over here as inexpensively as in the UK for starters, I do think it would have caught on more. Granted its available everywhere digitally now.