By: Russ Burlingame on January 22, 2013
Fans of Peter Travis’s brilliant Dredd 3D, the second attempt in ten years to make a feature film adaptation of the popular 2000 AD antihero Judge Dredd and the second to be considered a box office failure, have been aggressively pushing to make the film a success on home video in the (probably vain) hope that doing so will motivate Lionsgate to make a sequel.
Well, it looks like it’s worked; according to a statement from the film’s home video distributor, the movie is the #1 DVD and Blu-ray in the country, with over 650,000 units moved in its first week of release, setting the bar as the top-selling new release title of 2013.
Blu-ray units accounted for nearly 50% of week 1 POS at retail. In addition, the critically acclaimed thriller, starring Star Trek‘s Karl Urban as the titular character Judge Dredd , was the top film download for the week, outpacing all other titles in digital sales as well.
An aggressive campaign promoting the film as a digital download has continued, with the Sony Entertainment Network recently spotlighting the movie in its monthly newsletter.
Adapted by Alex Garland from John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s comic book creatio and released in a 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. The Blu-ray Disc and DVD both contain multiple behind-the-scenes featurettes including a look back at the 35 years of Judge Dredd .
With a highly competitive landscape during its theatrical debut, the thriller’s powerful home entertainment success underscores the importance of the market, something larger studios have been wont to overlook as the digital market overtakes physical media and DVD and Blu-ray sales for many mainstream films come in lower than expected..
“Dredd‘s chart topping performance demonstrates the breadth of the home entertainment audience for this exciting, high caliber film as well as underscoring our ability to monetize theatrical titles across all home entertainment platforms through the highest packaged, VOD and digital conversion rates in the industry,” said Ron Schwartz , Lionsgate Executive Vice President & General Manager, Home Entertainment. “We’re also pleased that a film released on 3-D Blu-ray was able to top the sales charts, a clear reflection of how quality films in this up and coming format can find their audience.”
The film was originally conceived by Garland as the first in a trilogy, with two more films loosely mapped out should the film have been a success, but it reportedly did not make the mark it needed to hit at the box office in order to merit a sequel.
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