Dredd Essay

Dread is a film based on a violent, futuristic city where the police have the authority to act as judge, jury and executioner, a cop called Dredd who is one of the best in the business teams with a trainee to take down a gang that deals the reality-altering drug, SLO-MO. The film is based on the Judge Dredd comic series. Also the film is a remake of the first film ‘Judge Dredd’.

Pre production –

The film was produced by Alex garland, who has produced films such as Never Let Me Go and 28 days later, and Is working on a new film called Ex Machina. He is used to producing violent films so this should have been no problem for him. The script writers for this film were John Wagner who has been involved in/wrote scripts for violent films before. Another scriptwriter for the film was Carlos Eiquerra who has worked on Comics Britannia and this film is based on a comic. This production company’s, which were involved in the making of Dredd, were IM global which Is one of the leading film financing, sales and distribution companies in the world as in owned by Stuart Ford. Another production company who was involved in making the film was DNA films, which is a British film production company (not as big as IM global) who is owned by Duncan Kenworthy. The company has a very close relationship with FOX. The DNA’s funding for the film was was split half way with FOX. The other Production company was Reliance Entertainment who is owned by Anil Ambani. The Distribution companies were Entertainment Film Distributors is a British distributor of independent films in the UK and Ireland for various production companies, currently run by Nigel and Trevor Green. The other distribution company was lionsgate who are a entertainment company who distribution films, the company is owned by Mark Rachesky and Jon Feltheimer. Lions gate announced there three picture deal with IM globin in 2010.  The film stars Karl urban who has been in the popular series Startreck so it would attract startreck fans. He announced his role in film Dredd during comic con, this would attract the target market of the film because it was originally based on a comic. The film also stars Oliva Thirlby who has been in films such as The Darkest Hour and Juno. Also stars of the film were Wood Harris and Lena Headly. Because the film is based on a comic fans of the original comic will want to go and see it also people who are interested in superhero comics/films may also want to see the film. Another group of people who would want to go and see the film would be Startreck fans because Karl Urban plays one of the main characters in Startreck. the film made $45 million dollars in presales and a distributor paid $7 million dollars to show the film. This is very surprising as the film is filmed in Johannesburg and Cape Town studios where as most superhero type films are filmed in state of the arch American film studios so you would of thought people would have been anguish about investing in the film. Also with it being filmed in south Africa means that 

labor/studio cost would have been very cheap.

Production –

The main character Dredd has a gun called the ‘Law Govern’ this was 
designed in 1995 and it first appeared in the comic book and the first film and also in this film. In the film there was a lot of slow-mo in the film because its based on a drug called slow-mo. The slow-mo was designed at the same time as the film never let me go. The film is a very violent film and has a lot of drug usage and bad language this made it a certificate 18, which makes the audience a lot smaller. The filmmakers were not fazed about this at all and said that they felt no pressure in making the film. The filming of Dredd started on 12^th November 2010 and it took thirteen weeks in total to film. The cameras that were used are the RED MX, SI2Ks and Phantoms flex high-speed camera. The film was shot in 3d and 2d to so they people could enjoy the film in whatever version they preferred.

Post Production –

There was a big problem when it came down to the editing of Dredd. The problem was that the main editor who was Travis was prohibited from participating in the editing process following creative disagreements between producers and executives. Garland took over the editing process, his contribution was considered significant enough for him to seek a co-director credit. A situation considered unusual as Garland had never directed a film before and had not been in charge of any filming. The disagreement concerned disapproval over the footage that Travis was providing.

The filmmakers had to experiment with the visuals of Mega-City One the included the design and positioning of the city's tower blocks, they did this to create the impression that the city had risen out of the remains of another. To do this they allowed more space between the buildings to emphasize the larger buildings and allow for the presence of roads and cars to allow for extrapolation outside of the picture.

Distribution -

The film was shown in 2,506 locations and cinemas and 2,200 of them were 3D, which only leaves 306 locations which were only 2D this meant you had to travel a long way to see the film in 2D. At Comic con they had a whole section dedicated to the film for under 25’s to get the film noticed to there target market who would most likely be at comic con as its people who would of liked comic book based films. To get Dredd more well know and get the public to go and see it LG partnered with another publisher 2000AD and motion comic and created an online comic strip for people to see that was a prequel to Dredd. There’s an event called Fantastic Fest this event is an annual film festival in Austin Texas and was founded in 2005. This would appeal to Dredd’s target market because there will be other films similar to Dredd there also it’s a festival for all around film lovers. At Fantastic fest the film won the golden trailer award. This is very good as the advertisement that makes people want to go and see the film is the trailer and if its got the best one it means that once people have seen the amazing trailer they will wont to go to the cinema and see the whole film.

Overall the film grossed $45 million at box office but the budget for the film was $41 million so unfortunately the film did not make any profit. The film got to number one in the UK DVD and Blu-ray charts, 650,00 DVD copies were sold and made $10,623,857 in DVD sales.

Why Dredd failed –

Now I am going to talk about why Dredd actually failed. There are many reasons why the film failed, but what I think the main reason was that they mainly released in 3D. They showed it in 2,506 locations and cinemas and 2,200 of them were 3D, which only leaves 306 locations which were only 2D. They obviously thought that everyone loves 3D films and that everyone would love to go and see it. Well they were wrong. So if you didn’t like it you would have to travel a long way to go and see it in 2D if you didn’t live near one of the locations were its being shown in 2D. So most likely people who wanted to see it but did not want to see it in 3D and didn’t live near a 2D screening would just not go and see it. 18% of people cant even go and see 3D films due to physical reasons. That’s a chunk of the there audience gone already unless they live near one of the 306 locations were it was shown in 2D. Also 3D is more expensive than 2D so people may not want to pay the extra money to go and see the film. Another thing is that people may not like 3D in general for example it may hurt there eyes or they might not like wearing the glasses etc. They then took an unusual step to try and make more people see it by getting rid of being able to see it in 3D which just made it worst as a lot of people don’t like 3D and now they could not see the film at all. Also as it came top in DVD and Blu-ray sales which shows that people wanted to see it in 2D ad that it was a bad idea to make it mainly them only in 3D. So overall the whole idea of basing the film around 3D is one of the reasons why Dredd failed and probably the main one. Another reason why I think the film because it is very similar to a film that came out before it called the Raid.  The films are very similar to each both about a cop getting stuck in a tower of flats and having to take down a drug lord. Another reason could be the fat that the comic Judge Dredd and the character Dredd was not big enough in the first place, when you think of a superhero being in a comic or film you don’t think of Judge Dredd you think of batman, Spiderman, hulk etc. So this is a reason why Dredd failed. Also a reason that Dredd may of failed is because of it being a 18-certificated film this restricts audience to people 18+ so teenagers who like superhero sort of films will not be able to see it until its on DVD unlike marvel films were they try and make there film just get into the 15-certificated barrier so more people are able to see it. A Reason it failed may be due to the poor marketing they didn’t do enough to get it out there and known in to the public, even though they got the award for the best trailer they did not get the trailer out to the public well enough. Also it could of failed because it was made in south Africa and people may not of though it was going to be good quality and not up to the standard of big American block busters. Finally the last reason that may of caused the fail is in the post production the fall out with the editing and the editors not agreeing and then Garland took over the editing process even though he has not had much experience in the film industry. There are many reasons why the film failed and its hard to just pick one, but I think that the main fault is the issue with the 3D.

When comparing the film to something like the avengers its hard to see why it failed. The avengers was produced by Kevin Feige and was the production company involved was marvel studios which are massive names in the film business, but so are Alex garland who produced Dredd and DNA films, IM Global who were the production company’s involved. The cast of the avengers included Robert Downey,Jr.,  Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo  and Samuel L. Jackson which are again big actors but so are the actors in Dredd which include Karl Urban, Oliva Thirlby, Wood Harris and Lena Headly . Even though the actors in the avengers are a little better known that is no reason for the film failing. The reviews for the avengers were mostly all good so if people read them they would want to go but so were the reviews for Dredd. The only two things different in the actual production in the film were the budget as the avengers had a budget of $220 million were as Dredd had a budget of $41 million which is a significant difference but the avengers only had that budget because it has its own production company and it’s a more well know film. Another thing is the fact that marvel characters are a lot more well known than the characters in Dredd.