Dredd 3D is a hard-hitting, balls-to-the-wall, take-your-granny-to-a-barn-dance-and-inject-her--with-50,000-volts kind of movie. And it completely bombed at the box office. Despite being a niche property - cult comic book, sci-fi, dour, gunning for an "18" rating and wearing it with pride - it's failure to bring home the bacon will have long lasting repercussions for the film industry and for us all, regardless of your taste in films. This article delves into thee reasons why, the state of the box office, the thinking of the powers-that-be, and the dominant force in cinema today. With a touch of venereal disease thrown in for good measure. It all makes for sobering reading, but as even Dredd himself noted: "It's all a deep end."
4. Every Silver Lining Has A Cloud
Last year something joyous and tragic happened. The good was that
Dredd 3D was released, and we finally got to see the iconic character inspired by
Dirty Harry and who in turn was the inspiration for
Robocop. The bad is that it sunk faster than a fat Mafioso in concrete boots. Before anyone takes issue with my use of finally and points to
Judge Dredd, that film was simply Stallone playing a cop who just happened to wear a Judges helmet. Stallone may as well have been reprising his role as Jack Spartan from
Demolition Man, his only achievement was demonstrating he understood Judge Dredd about as well as Axl Rose takes criticism. So back to
Dredd 3D. EV paid £5m for UK rights and expected a profit on that investment, and yet it crawled to £2m. In the US, it was predicted for an opening weekend of $8-10m, yet it barely managed $6m and by the next week it had dropped out of the top 10 altogether. If only my women went down so easily. But I digress In the end,
Dredd 3D took just $13m in the US (producer and writer Alex Garland stated it needed $50m in the US to justify a sequel) and with the film just finishing its run in China and Japan, has done about $40m worldwide. Considering it cost $35m and needs to double its budget just to break even, $40m makes for grim reading. Granted, its doing very well on home video, and even topped the charts in both America and Britain, but even with the estimated $20m in DVD and Blu Ray sales, its still in the red and the big surge in sales is over. But why is this bad for all of us? For cinema? For the children?
Good God! What about the children?! Some of you wont care for unapologetically violent shoot em ups set in a dystopian future showcasing an anti-hero and to you people I ask: "
whats wrong with you?!" But I digress Some just wont care about a sci-fi, comic book adaptation with lots of gunfire and hot chicks in tight leather (again,
"whats wrong with you?!") so why should you be mopping a furrowed brow? You want the truth? You cant handle the truth! But if you insist, take the red pill and see how deep this rabbit hole goes.