It vastly underperformed at the box-office - not even making back its $50 million budget - but Dredd was one of the most intriguing and well-received action movies that year. In fact, we saw it in a cinema with four other people and absolutely loved it. So why did it not do well? Mainly due to very poor marketing on the studio's part. In Ireland, at least, there was no press screening for it so it was largely ignored by critics here.
Not only that, there was very little money put into promoting the film here or abroad. Dredd had a lot of things going for it. Chief among them was the fact that it was a no-holds-barred 18's / R-Rated comic-book movie. It's almost unheard of for a comic-book film to go past a 15's certificate, certainly not into the gory, curse-filled world of 18's.
Not only that, you had an extremely talented actor taking the reins - namely Karl Urban - and a script written by Alex Garland. He wrote two little films called 28 Days Later and The Beach, which you may or may not have heard of. Not only that, the film was directed by Pete Travis who did the equally-underrated Vantage Point and even Lena Headey of Game of Thrones / 300 fame turned up as a kick-ass baddie.
Still, it just didn't translate into box-office gold and a sequel was scrapped. Or so it would seem. A petition was launched for a Dredd sequel and has been steadily gaining momentum. So much so that Karl Urban posted this video message to thank fans for their support and that he's working hard to get a Dredd sequel made.
We for one cannot wait to see what a Dredd sequel would look like. If it's any way as good as the first, we're happy.
