As some of you may know I am kind of a 2000AD fanboy with love for every thing Dredd and beyond so I was wondering why was Dredd such a big fail in the US? The film has had nothing but good reviews with a 77% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, it topped the Box Office in the UK yet bombed massively in the US which has effectively ended the planed film trilogy and TV series. So can anybody tell me why?

@Jonny_Anonymous: Superhero fatigue.

@TheCrowbar: Dredd isn't a superhero

@Jonny_Anonymous: comicbook superhero, it goes hand in hand in people's perception. They released the movie at a bad time

@TheCrowbar: Pepole in America really think Dredd is a superhero? I don't buy that.

@Jonny_Anonymous said:

@TheCrowbar: Pepole in America really think Dredd is a superhero? I don't buy that.

one word, WAR.

people are tired of generic supercop with gun. or films with a lot of guns in general.

@Jonny_Anonymous said:

@TheCrowbar: Pepole in America really think Dredd is a superhero? I don't buy that.

Believe it. People see a uniform and a mask (or in this case, helmet) and automatically label it under the superhero category.

As for why it tanked, I have no idea. I'd say it's release date, but Looper did insanely well compared to Dredd, so... I got nothing. Possibly the lack of big name actors? Marketing wasn't too great? Those could also be factors. As far as the average American consumer is concerned, Rotten Tomato scores mean nothing.

@warlock360: What about it?

@theTimeStreamer: If that was true then no action films would be making it big and that's obviously not the case also if it was generic then it would be getting generic reviews

@Jonny_Anonymous: Main focus of the movie is on him, he's got a gun. He's the hero, kinda attitude.

@Gambit1024: But it's a police uniform and it's not like he's the only one, there tons of Judges

@warlock360: But thats like the focus of every film ever, but I would argue that the story is centred more around Anderson than Dredd

@Jonny_Anonymous: You arguing isn't going to change how it did.

@TheCrowbar: that's not what I'm trying to do

@Jonny_Anonymous: Again, average American doesn't understand that. They see uniform and helmet, they assume superhero. Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but my country is filled with idiot consumers.

@Gambit1024: Damn, well do me a favour and go around and slap these pepole because now I won't get any more 2000AD films

@Jonny_Anonymous: no movie that relies heavily on gun fights has made it big since the 90s. and it has been getting good reviews not great nothing special.

@theTimeStreamer: That's hardly true also there is a story, it's not just fights. Good reviews is still better than Resident Evil yet it still did better.

@Jonny_Anonymous: Lol, that's a lot of people

@Gambit1024: You can do it, I have faith in you man

I forgot to see it. My bad.

IMHO: Marketing not making it appealing enough or providing enough info to get the general audience interested / the assumption it's connected to Stallone's '95 film. 
 
I saw it opening night and there was sadly less than a dozen people in the large theater.

Maybe people are finally getting tired of this generation of film makers trying to remake EVERYTHING.

@Vance Astro: It's not a remake if it's just another film with the same character

It wasn't as great as it's being let up to be. I was underwhelmed. There was little thought in the plot, just Dredd and how the law in the time period enforces any given situation. The only decent spin was the corrupt judges

@Vance Astro: It's not a remake if it's just another film with the same character

@Vance Astro said:

@Jonny_Anonymous said:

@Vance Astro: It's not a remake if it's just another film with the same character

How would anyone who doesn't follow the character know that? I'm sure most people think it's just a remake of a Stallone film that they didn't like in the first place.

5 seconds on the internet would tell them everything they need to know

@Jonny_Anonymous: Dont listen to some of these posters Dredd's flop had NOTHING to do with so called "superhero fatigue". Im sure most people had no idea it was even based off a comic and it looked nothing like a superhero movie. The real reason it did bad is pretty simple. Bad marketing, along with some lingering memories of the 90's Judge Dredd had a bit to do with it but it released at a really terrible time. No movies do very well in September. It also had little star power and after the first week it flopped the number of screens it is playing on was seriously cut so its a bit difficult to see it even if people wanted to see it after the first week.

@k4tzm4n: @noj: Well I cant really comment on the marketing in the US, did you guys not have adverts on TV and stuff?

Terrible marketing. It had nothing to do with superhero fatigue (I never saw one person saying "oh, a new superhero movie"), or action movie fatigue. It's just bad marketing. Dredd is still relatively unknown in the US (or anywhere outside the UK), and the Stallone film is their only reference. When I saw the first trailer my reaction was "wow, this looks bad", and a lot of people thought so as well, people who saw the movie and loved it (including myself). The marketing was horrible, this should have been THE movie before The Hobbit, but they didn't do any kind of effort. It was as bad as John Carter (and we all know what happened to that movie).

@k4tzm4n: @noj: Well I cant really comment on the marketing in the US, did you guys not have adverts on TV and stuff?

@k4tzm4n said:

@Jonny_Anonymous said:

@k4tzm4n: @noj: Well I cant really comment on the marketing in the US, did you guys not have adverts on TV and stuff?

We certainly did, but the promos/trailers never really did a proper job of doing the film justice or providing information to an unfamiliar audience. I'm sure many thought it was connected to Stallone's film or thought it looked like a generic action movie -- therefore making it not very appealing to many. This same crowd likely doesn't bother with sites such as Rotten Tomatoes, so they were unaware of how well it was reviewed before being released.

It's such a shame because 2000AD have hundreds of really cool characters that I would love to see on the big (or small) screen but if there flagship character cant make it then there is no chance of it happening, not to mention it's like one of the only non-American comic book companys to actually get a movie