Hollywood will remake just about anything. They will give just about anything a sequel. What’s more, Hollywood loves superhero and comic book movies to the point that a sequel is already preordained before the film comes out. And the Internet has proven that if they demand hard enough, they can get just about anything.
But even that system has its limits. A number of fans have been desperately buying up DVD copies of Dredd, the comic book movie from 2012, in the hopes that a sequel might actually happen. In fact, the movie was the number one selling new release on DVD back when it was released on Blu-Ray.
Well, the writer of that movie, Alex Garland, is asking that people stop doing that. Because Dredd 2 is not going to happen. (Gretchen, stop trying to make Dredd happen!)
Garland spoke to io9 about his directorial debut Ex Machina (watch the trailer here) when someone asked about the sequel to the comic book film. Here’s what he had to say:
There isn’t, as far as I can tell, going to be a Dredd sequel. The basic mechanics of film financing say that if you make a film that loses a ton of money, you’re not going to get a sequel. And that’s basically what happened.
And I understand and appreciate the support the film has had, and the campaigns that have existed for it, and it’s really genuinely gratifying — I love it in all respects except one, which is when I hear about people buying copies of the DVD in order to boost sales and to change the figures. And what I want to say to them is, “Don’t do that. Keep your money.” Because the people that are making the decisions are much colder and harder than that. And the graphs they’re looking at are not really going to be sufficiently dented by that.
So the support for the film is truly appreciated. But if there is going to be a sequel, it’s not going to be me and the team of people who worked on the previous film, it’s going to be another bunch of people. And good luck to them, and I hope it happens. I really do. I hope they do a better job than we did.
For point of reference, Dredd did lose a lot of money. It cost upwards of $50 million and brought in only $35 million worldwide, a measly $13 million of that domestically. That’s not to say that movies that have lost money haven’t also gotten sequels, or that, like Garland says, someone else could easily create their own Dredd project.
Just please, stop buying DVD copies of Dredd. It’ll be okay.
