There were numerous mistakes made in the 1995 Judge Dredd film, not least taking Sylvester Stallone’s lawman out of his iconic uniform early on in the film, but also ditching the decaying political undertones of the original concept, in effect neutering the movie and resigning it to lay strewn in amongst the hundreds of other Blade Runner-lite action films.
News of another Dredd movie has been doing the rounds for a while, and fans are hoping for a return to the characters roots. That hope may be realised as today Deadline announce that Reliance Big Entertainment have stepped up with Andrew MacDonald’s DNA Films to develop Dredd’s next big screen outing.
DNA, who were behind the 28 Days Later and Sunshine films are looking to the scribe of those films, Alex Garland, to write this new film, which is expected to be closer to the vision of John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s 2000AD classic antihero. The British director Pete Travis is set to direct, his previous works include Vantage Point, Endgame and the Channel 4 TV film Omagh.
It was expected that Travis wold be setting up the modern day reworking of Macbeth, Come Like Shadows with Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton, but the 3D Dredd (yes, of course it’ll be in 3D) will be Travis’s next project.
It’s an exhilarating prospect to think of a new Dredd movie, the world is rich in social commentary and humour black as night, and we need a team behind it that won’t seek to satisfy only the male teenage audience – hopefully now, we have that team.
