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Molly Simpson Media Studies 12A3

Why Did Dredd Fail At The Box Office? (Improved)

People wondered why the British/South African film Dredd failed at box office. People considered

that it failed because of its low budget and it not being British enough. Looking into it in more

detail, there are many explanations to why Dredd failed.

Dredd (2012) was a film created on the comic book superhero Judge Dredd (1977) invented by the

UK. He was designed to defend his city from the bad and evil. The US created a film adaptation of

the character in 1995. It wasnt verypopular and didnt do very well because the UK created the

character, therefore the superhero and novel was unknown in the states. This meant whoever

created the adaptation lost out on a lot of money because the film was brought out in the wrong

country at the wrong time.

In recent years, superhero films are popular everywhere and the majority use CGI. Computer-

Generated Imagery is a modern IT programme and is now used effectively to create films to a

professional state and to add special effects such as instead of hiring extras for a crowd scene, they

can just construct fake people into it, for example like the crowd of zombies from World War Z. This

is effective because it saves money on having to hire people. Dredd used this lot to cut costs off their

low budget.

Dredd was created to compete with US superhero films. However it failed due to its bad reputation.

This happened because of a variety of things. Unlike Dredd, the majority of other superhero films

were successful. This is because they required and considered all of the things Dredd did not have.

Comparing Dredd and Spiderman together will show how unsuccessful Dredd was.

Judge Dredd came from an English magazine company (IPC Media), which is not a very well-known

company, making it difficult for the character to become noticed. Because this character is English, it

already creates a problem as the UK isnt as big as the US; they have a smaller population than the

US so have huge competition. Spiderman came from a popular magazine in America (Marvel Comics)

created into a cross media convergence. Spiderman was more likely to do better than Dredd

because America has a bigger population than England itself and the character came from a

trustworthy source.

Judge Dredd is played by Karl Urban (New Zealand actor). This actor doesnt really benefit the film

because hes not verypopular, therefore most people wouldnt be that bothered about going to see

him. This meant the film was already missing one thing; an a-list star.

Spiderman is played by Andrew Garfield (American/English actor). Garfield has not been involved in

many films, however, he sustained the role throughout all of the Spidermans and he has been in

another successful film called The Social Network. Having a known star in a film allows the target

audience to become more interested in going to see it, and Dredd missed out on this. Because the

character was popular to all ages also meant it was going to do well, unlike Dredd.

Dredds budget was$45 million, and Spidermans was$230 million. Dredd had a low budget because

they were not willing to spend money which could be one of the reasons it didnt do very well.

Spidermans budget washuge therefore it was more likely to do better.

The director of Spiderman was Marc Webb, an American film director. Although hes not directed

many films, he has directed successful ones such as Spiderman and 500 Days of summer. Dredds

director was Pete Travis, an English film director. This director does not really have much experience

with film directing, which is perhaps why the film didnt do very well.

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