You Don’t Have to Dredd This Reboot

?Seeing how Sylvester Stallone is currently kicking all sorts of ass (including Scott Pilgrim’s) back on the big screen in The Expendables, it’s easily to forget his failed action movies of the 1990s: Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! (which was infamously retitled by some punk kids as Stop! Or My Mom Will Show You Her Titties on the marquee at Philadelphia’s GGC Northeast 4 theater), Demolition Man and Judge Dredd. As further proof of Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy/general end times nuttiness, the last of these is getting rebooted. Yep, Judge Dredd will be once again fighting crime and encountering audience indifference on the big screen. Empire reports:

Karl Urban has been confirmed for the leading role in Judge Dredd
by producers Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich of the new film. Urban
had been rumoured for the role already, but in a Movie-Con Q&A this
evening the pair confirmed that he has been cast for the film, shooting
in South Africa soon.

“The main thing about Dredd is that it’s a
fantastic comic that was completely messed up 20 years ago,” said
Macdonald. “Our idea is to make a very hard, R-rated, gritty, realistic
movie of Dredd in Megacity, so we’ve got to get the tone right. He’s
not going to take off his helmet. His bike is going to feel real. He’s
going to hit people and it’s going to feel real.”

“There’s been a
change in comic-book movies; they were treated unseriously and now
they’re treated seriously. We’ve cast a guy called Karl Urban to play
Dredd. We’ll be shooting in Johannesburg, it’s being directed by Pete
Travis, we’re shooting with the people who did District 9 – and if we
get it right, Alex has a couple of ideas for other stories as well.
It’s not based on any one comic, and John Wagner is involved in every
decision.”

Ladies and gentlemen who are Judge Dredd fans, that sound you hear is music in your ears.

As a huge fan of Urban’s I have to admit that this is a great bit of casting (and an R-rated version of the 2000 AD tales does sound interesting). In fact, it could be the next great dystopian sci-fi franchise. Yet I honestly don’t see American audiences giving a shit. It will probably do decent enough box office in the UK because of the character’s legacy there, but no one knows Dredd here. That coupled with the legacy of Stallone bomb means that the film going to have an uphill climb ahead of it. And we all know how well niche comics fare at the box office. These are injustices that even Dredd can’t fix. Sigh. Expect lots more news about this one in the coming months, and my condolences to any of you who love this character. You’re probably going to have your hearts broken all over again.