Monday Morning Quarterback Part II

By BOP Staff

September 25, 2012

Glass half full perspective: they had a 50/50 shot at getting it right!

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Tim Briody: Judge Dredd is still a bit of a punchline nearly 20 years later. It seemed to carry over to the reboot this weekend. It'll probably do boffo overseas and maybe even on Blu-Ray but, well, not at the box office domestically.

Max Braden: The trailers for this made it look like another unnecessary, unrequested remake like Conan The Barbarian and Total Recall. Hiding your lead behind a mask isn't advisable, though in this case most audiences probably wouldn't place Karl Urban until you specify Star Trek. Plus, I can't be the only one who negatively associated his gruff delivery with Christian Bale's overly aggressive Batman growl. Still, sub $10 million is a bit of a surprise.

David Mumpower: In addition to the other correct thoughts stated here, I believe that there are some concepts that simply cannot appeal to mainstream audiences. Judge Dredd has the same issue as The Punisher in that the character is not relatable to most people. These are ruthless killers, at least in matters wherein they believe they are right. Even acknowledging that, however, this is the type of performance that prevents the employees involved from ever working on an expensive project again. An element of trust is lost when a film fails this dramatically. This is another title that failed the laugh test and those bombs are more difficult to justify down the road. There was never a moment where any of us believed, "That Dredd reboot is going to be popular!" Any time we say that in the wake of a disastrous result, it indicates that mistakes were made at the inception of a project.

The worst part here is that the one issue where everyone excelled is that Dredd is a good movie. Contrast that to say Catwoman or Punisher: War Zone. Dredd deserved a better fate and yet it was never going to get one.




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There are so many things this movie could be mistaken for.

Kim Hollis: The Master expanded from five to 877 locations, and earned $4.4 million over the weekend. How do you see this movie playing out over the long term with regards to box office as well as awards contention?

Brett Beach: Although it may seem that TWC jumped the gun in going from one of the top limited debuts ever to nearly 800 screens without a little more platforming, I think it was the best choice for what definitely (based on what I know) is not a crowdpleaser like the last two year's Best Picture Oscar winners released by the studio: The King's Speech and The Artist, and wouldn't benefit from three to four more weeks of careful handling. There are going to be a lot of quality films vying for notice this fall. My early impression as of now is that the races won't become clear for quite sometime. I think the audience for this will be limited, great as it may be, and the final tally probably will not approach the $40 million heights of There Will be Blood, even with late year plaudits and re-releases to capture the curious who had been on the fence. Unless of course, there is an "I drink your milkshake" parallel about to go viral (and hopefully not before I get a chance to see this later this week).


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