Worrying news from the LA Times today as they have a report that Pete Travis has been asked to leave the movie Dredd, following creative differences as the film enters the edit stage.
The Times claim that writer and producer on the film Alex Garland is leading the project in the absence of its director with reshoots possible before the scheduled release in September of next year.
What this means for the film is unclear but two, fairly dismal, options present themselves. The first is that the producers were so unhappy with the way the film was shot that they showed the director the door and scrambled to salvage the film in the edit or that Garland was such a strong presence in the first place in his dual role that Travis was unable to make the film in his image therefore walking as the struggle continued.
Either way this is disappointing news for fans of the character who were served up a howler* sixteen years ago with Sly Stallone removing his Judge’s helmet which acted as a metaphorical opening of a Pandora’s Box of Rubbish.
The casting of Karl Urban in the lead role was seen a positive move and generally welcomed, Alex Garland’s work with Danny Boyle on The Beach, 28 Days Later and Sunshine as well as his celebrated adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go for director Mark Romanek gave his involvment in the project an instant air of expectation. However he hasn’t directed a film before and if, as the Times asserts, he applies for a Co-director credit on the film there is no telling how the film will end up.
We’ll wait for an official announcement to confim the Times’ article and cross our fingers that this one will make it to the big screen intact. If only Duncan Jones had said yes…
*the word ‘howler’ is English for ‘really, really terrible’.
