Adjusting box office numbers for inflation is a fun little game. We recently saw how 'The Dark Knight Rises' held up against Tim Burton's 1989 'Batman,' and the results were a bit surprising. But this time we're taking a look at the worst opening weekends of all time, and 2012 has quite a few titles on that list -- one recent film in particular actually had the worst opening weekend of all time. Any guesses?
When a movie called 'Judge Dredd' is as bad as 'Judge Dredd,' the "dreddful" jokes write themselves. The original 'Dredd' movie starring Sylvester Stallone was so horrifically awful, it rendered the property more radioactive than the post-apocalyptic wasteland surrounding the title character's hometown of Mega-City One. The popular future cop from the long-running British series '2000 AD' finally returns to the big screen with 'Dredd,' a significant improvement over the Stallone vehicle with a vastly improved storyline and a far darker tone.
It eschews the first film's colorful, over-the-top action and wacky comic relief for the sort of grimy, sadistic ultraviolence found in the '70s exploitation films that inspired the creation of the Dredd character in the first place, and it's a surprisingly entertaining movie for something that's so unsettlingly violent. You've never had so much fun watching people get shot in the face in super slow-motion.
'Dredd 3D' is hitting theaters today, and it's doing it with a bang. The film stars Karl Urban as Dredd, one of a force of "Judges" in a dystopian future society who act as judge, jury and executioner. Dredd teams up with a rookie on her first day, and the pair respond to a routine homicide investigation that ends up becoming an all-out war with a drug queen called Ma-Ma. We had a chance to talk to Mr. Urban about his role in the film, that crazy helmet and working with such strong female co-stars.
Although we're currently in the movie doldrums, there are two big action movies looking to make a splash this September. On one hand, you've got 'Dredd,' a reboot of a comic book franchise that was dead on arrival in its original 1995 incarnation, and you've got 'Resident Evil: Retribution,' the fifth entry in a series that, like its zombie villains, refuses to die. Now, the former has a new featurette and the latter has a handful of new TV spots.
'Dredd' is not based on a particularly well known comic nor does it star a household name (although we here at Screencrush do love us some Karl Urban). Therefore, the marketing campaign has had to concentrate on the film's style, particularly its extensive use of extreme slow motion photography. Lionsgate has released a very cool featurette that explores this aspect of the film and it just confirms what we've always known: slow motion is really, really cool.
It's the end of summer, so celebrate by heading to the theater to check out this month's new releases. We've got the latest from Rian Johnson, a new raunchy female-centric comedy, an animated trip to a spooky hotel, and the highly-anticipated new film from Paul Thomas Anderson.
When we were at Comic-Con 2012 in San Diego, we got to see a screening of the upcoming action flick 'Dredd.' While we didn't get a close look at our guy Karl Urban, (duh, 'cause he kept his helmet on for the entire film) we did get a close-up snapshot of Lena Headey as Madeline “Ma-Ma” Madrigal. Let's just say, we were a little more than frightened.
