Dredd Becomes the Best-Selling New Release Title of the Year
Posted January 22, 2013 04:01 PM by Webmaster
It is only January, but Lionsgate Films announced today that Pete Travis' Dredd (2012), starring Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby and Lena Headey, has become the top-selling new release of the year. Blu-ray units accounted for nearly 50% of week 1 POS at retail.
Adapted by Alex Garland from John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra's legendary comic book and released in a stunning 3-D Blu-ray, Dredd adds to Lionsgate's long history of theatrical titles that have overconverted their box office performance on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital.
Earlier this month at CES in Las Vegas, Lionsgate announced a partnership with Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung to convert select Lionsgate action and thriller titles for the booming 3D home entertainment market.
No surprises, it was one of the better reviewed films of the year in its genre nit between badwill after the first interpretation of the franchise and poor marketing it did not do well at the box office but with all the good word of mouth since its short theatrical run it was set to do really well at the home box office It just remains to be seen if it will do enough to warrant a sequel. It is a big ask seeing it only recovered about a third of its budget at the cinema.
"Earlier this month at CES in Las Vegas, Lionsgate announced a partnership with Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung to convert select Lionsgate action and thriller titles for the booming 3D home entertainment market."
Actually, it would've made more sense that Lionsgate partner with LG since the brand itself is pretty popular amongst 3D enthusiasts AND they each have the same initials already, but whatever..
Glad to see Dredd as the #1 BD so far. I'm sure it'll stay there till at least Skyfall comes out in February. I'm also still behind the idea of Neill Blomkamp taking over as director. He made District 9 with almost half the budget Dredd cost, so if they by chance green light a sequel, but have to lower the budget, I think Blomkamp would be the perfect fit given his experience and accomplishments in making an equally gritty and visceral kind of moralistic sci-fi thriller in D9. Not to mention Dredd was filmed in South Africa, which is Blomkamp's backyard, so that should make it even easier in terms of logistics.
I agree, I saw Dredd 3D in a very empty theater but it was a very welcome surprise !! Sequel only with Karl Urban please, I really don't want to see anyone else in the role. That would totally defeat the purpose of making a second one. But if there would be i'm sure it would be direct to video.....
I have it rented. Have to check it out. But strong Blu/DVD sales won't result in a sequel given that the b.o. was so bad, right? I don't know what kind of profit they make off strong Blu/DVD sales.
Has anyone else had problems trying to play it on ps3? I bought a copy and my ps3 wont read the disc. Same thing with my brother and we made sure that our firmware was up to date
Music to my ears. I'm always pushing Dredd on to fellow movie goers. More than anyone I would love to see a sequel, but there is so much they probably have to recover that it likely won't happen. The studios probably wouldn't take another risk like that. I'd settle for a miniseries with Urban and Thirlby of course. Anyways lets just hope it keeps doing well on the home market and maybe we'll get to see more of this gritty Dredd universe.
mow69 No problem playing this. I'm not setup for 3D, monitor-wise, just the software on my PS3. After popping in the disc the player displayed a message stating that it couldn't find the required hardware for 3D playback, then proceeded with normal BR playback.
@cash_black: I think that best New Release title-of-the-year is enough to warrant a sequel, chief. I bet the sequel does even better now that the word is out!
I could never find a 2D showing of this. Lionsgate went hard pushing the 3D version and I think a lot of people just stayed away from it. Glad to see home video sales are strong.
I don't mean to be negative here and I do hope they make a sequel. (I haven't seen the film but it seems most people that have seen it love it so I hope for their sake they get a sequel.) But when they say it's the best selling new release of the year, they do know it's only been 2013 for about 3 weeks, right? And when they say "new release," is that basically saying "it's the best selling new release movie so far, but not the best selling movie overall"?
It wasn't released until 8 January 2013, so thus far in 2013 it is the best selling NEW Blu. Which is cool, but really what other big new titles have come out in January 2013? If they were including 2012 pre-orders they would have to state that because that is a big difference of situation. Pre-orders can always be canceled.
I did blind buy this and it is a pretty decent flick, and I like the vast different story and over-all style as compared to the original Judge Dredd. I wasn't blown away though and I would be hesitant to blind buy a sequel.
Anyone see comments in the forum about how the blu ray doesn't work for PS3 (I've got the current firmware update, cleaned cache)? Lionsgate Customer Service doesn't give a damn. I'm returning mine...again...Lionsgate needs to fix this problem before thinking of a damn sequel.
@Chauncey
Try disconnecting your PS3 from your network. I use a stand alone Blu-ray player for all my movie watching, however in the past that is what I did if I had playback issues.
I'm sure there will be an update of sorts to correct the issue.
Actually, it's box office gross was less than $11 million short of its $45 million budget. $36.4 million divided $45 million equals about 81% of its budget.
This is one of the difficulties of making a rated-R movie in 3D. Even if you're post-converting, which "Dredd" wasn't (it was filmed in 3D), it's still expensive. And when you make it rated-R you're limiting your audience. But it did better than "Drive Angry 3D." Critics reviews were generally positive too.
I hope that with more blu-ray/DVD sales, we can inspire a sequel to be made. Writer & producer Alex Garland said he had a whole trilogy planned, but only if it made $50 million in North America.
I wish I had millions of dollars so I finance a sequel, filmed with IMAX 3D cameras.
I really want to see this, but my disc from Best Buy would't play. Is it OK from other sources? Looks like a big problem at Best Buy, lots of people mentioned it on their site.
It just remains to be seen if it will do enough to warrant a sequel. It is a big ask seeing it only recovered about a third of its budget at the cinema. 
