Box Office Tales: Dredd's Financial Failure Remains a Tragedy

"Dredd" had multiple distributors in markets around the world, but it was Lionsgate that landed the North American rights to the violent, buzzy comic book movie. And it's worth noting that the studio has always done well with mid-budget films. So it seemed like a good fit. Either way, opening weekend was nothing short of a shipwreck. The film opened on September 7 in the UK and got off to a slow start, debuting at just $1.6 million. But when it opened in the United States a few weeks later, on September 21, it was a disaster.

Opening against "End of Watch", "House at the End of the Street" and "Trouble with the Curve", "Dredd" debuted at number six on the charts with just 6.2 millions of dollars. All due respect to the weekend competition, but it's not like this movie lost out to the frosty classics. It even made less than Disney's re-release of "Finding Nemo," which was in its second weekend. “Resident Evil: Retribution” also did more in its second weekend, raking in $6.7. It was so bad.

At that time, the writing was on the wall. The movie dropped into the top ten the following weekend and that was it. It ended its run with a modest $13.4 million domestically and $27.6 million internationally for a total of $41 million. It didn't even recoup its budget in gross ticket sales, let alone marketing costs. A big disappointment, to say the least.