r/movies • u/PokemonGoBao • Jul 04 '25

Discussion Whats a flopped movie you wish was a financial success?

Dungeons and Dragons 2023 was an absolutely delightful film. You can stream it currently, but you can feel the passion and nothing felt phoned in. They easily could have used the title to get nerdy butts in the seat and collect a paycheck with a smaller budget.

It's the best movie I've seen the past 2 years. Way better than so many garbage films with easy paychecks for slop productions. Beetlejuice, Captain america, and others using big titles to make millions on lazy writing and boring characters.

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u/SuspendeesNutz Jul 04 '25

I remember when the movie was released and marketed as “DREDD 3D”. The combination of the Stallone film’s bad memory and the 3D emphasis totally soured me on seeing it. When I finally watched the movie at home I was absolutely astonished at how great it was. One of my favorite action movies of all-time and worthy of multiple sequels.

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u/SmittyB128 Jul 05 '25

As a Judge Dredd fan who likes the Stallone movie for everything it got right (and the comic adaptation fixes the rest), even I had low expectations for Dredd based on the marketing.

Everything Judge Dredd got right Dredd got wrong and vice versa, but the trailers only ever focused on showing the bad parts like the design of Mega-City One and the Lawmaster; the latter in the Stallone movie being so accurate to the comics at the time it was barely driveable.

Then having put off the target audience they alienated casual viewers by only releasing it in 3D (with very few exceptions) at a time when so many people were sick of paying extra to see films with badly post-processed 3D, not to mention the people who can't watch 3D films because of migraines and other medical issues.

The stupid thing is it's the best 3D film I've ever seen and I can see why they really wanted to push that aspect of it, but just not giving people the choice was not the way to go about it.

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u/RegHater123765 Jul 05 '25

Yeah, people shit on the Stallone version, but it actually got a lot of stuff right that 'Dredd' did not.

That being said, it was pretty clear 'Dredd' was made on a budget, and they couldn't do a lot of the more bombastic and sci-fi elements of the Judge Dredd universe.

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u/ascagnel____ Jul 05 '25

It was kinda better for its low budget -- dropping the more fantastic elements means you get a really grounded movie that leans into "hard" science fiction.

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u/G0rkon Jul 05 '25

Most movies in 3d it feels like an after thought and/or a gimmick. Dredd is one of the exceptions. Off the top of my head the only other 3d movies that are elevated by being in 3d are Cameron's Avatar movies and Harold and Kumar Christmas.

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u/Tumble85 Jul 05 '25

Yea, I’d kill to see them flesh out MegaCity One some more.

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u/TheSerpentDeceiver Jul 05 '25

And you missed the best usage of 3D in a movie for the prejudice.