Dredd is the movie that just won’t die. Still with a strong cult classic following as ever, fans continue to be in memoriam of the phenomenal 2012 movie based off the famous Lawman of Mega City One. Under-performing at the box office sadly is what lead to its obscurity then, and with the support of fan films, petitions and Blu-ray sales galore, the licence is up for another media adaptation in the form of a TV series entitled Judge Dredd: Mega City One. While we still have nothing updated if the film Dredd’s universe will be continued off that, there are talks with Dredd actor himself Karl Urban to be involved in the show.
However, we learn something new every time with the oddly-produced Dredd reboot and this time, a major credit has not been received for a close contributor of the film. Promoting his new film BENT, Urban spoke to JoBlo about his time being the Lawman and his potential opportunity to coming back. In addition to his hopes, Urban dropped a big secret with the production of the original. As it turns out, Alex Garland, producer and writer of Dredd, has actually been involved in directing majority of Dredd instead of Peter Travis.
“I would love to have the opportunity to play Dredd again, but if it doesn’t happen then I’m happy with the fact that we’ve made a film that has become a cult classic and that people have discovered over time. A huge part of the success of Dredd is in fact due to Alex Garland and what a lot of people don’t realize is that Alex Garland actually directed that movie.”
Urban continued about having Garland involved in another Dredd adaptation alongside him:
“That would rock my world. I just hope when people think of Alex Garland’s filmography that Dredd is the first film that he made before Ex Machina. You think about it in those terms; it goes Dredd, Ex Machina, Annihilation.”
There seems to be a lot of interesting behind-the-scenes going on with what happened while making the Dredd film. Just prior to this, it was revealed from Jason Kingsley, co-owner of the Judge Dredd character and executive producer of the film, that famed Dredd producer Adi Shankar is not involved in any future workswith Dredd – despite Shankar’s claims:
While we truly do appreciate Adi’s enthusiasm for Judge Dredd, he has no involvement with the franchise and any future cinematic or small screen outings. Claims of him pushing forward a sequel to DREDD are not true and we don’t want fans to get excited only to have their hopes dashed. 2000 AD and Rebellion continue to work hard to bring the future’s greatest lawman back to screens.
Alex Garland is coming straight off directing his latest film, Annihilation, a true testament to his visual ability. If the likes of that and Ex Machina were really the same hands that delivered Dredd, then it should come to no surprise for the quality. With that sort of credibility, perhaps 2000AD could actually consider Garland to write or even direct an episode or two of Judge Dredd: Mega City One.
Annihilation is currently out in theaters.