It’s sometimes hard to remember, what with the lukewarm likes of “Iron Man 2,” but we are living in unquestionably something of a golden age for the comic book adaptation. In the early part of the the last decade, there was a “Catwoman” or “Daredevil” for every “Spider-Man” or “X-Men,” while the mid-1990s were a wasteland, full of disasters like Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies, “Tank Girl” and “Judge Dredd.”
Things are coming full-circle again, however, after Christopher Nolan resurrected the Batman franchise, and now some of the other characters from that era are being resurrected. It was announced last year that Danny Boyle collaborator Alex Garland, screenwriter of “28 Days Later” and “Sunshine,” would be writing a script for DNA Films’ reboot of British supercop “Judge Dredd,” and now Deadline have announced that DNA have struck a deal for financing of the $50 million movie from Reliance Big Entertainment and IM Global.
What’s more, the project now has a director, in the shape of Paul Greengrass protege Pete Travis. While Travis was behind the ludicrous thriller “Vantage Point,” he also directed the excellent docudramas “Omagh” and “Endgame,” so it’s a choice we can live with. The film will, of course, be in 3D, and IM Global will be selling the film at Cannes in the next few weeks.
Our knowledge of the character is fairly limited (this writer read 2000AD, the home of Judge Dredd, for about six weeks when he was twelve), but he’s essentially a Dirty Harry-inspired semi-fascist policeman (or ‘Judge’) in the futuristic Mega City One, able to legally try, sentence and execute criminals.
There’s a heavy satirical, political element to the character, one entirely missed in the 1995 Sylvester Stallone version, but with the weighty behind the scenes talents here, it seems reasonable to hope that this’ll be closer to the source material; Travis specializes in documentary-style action, while producer Andrew Macdonald was behind the likes of “Trainspotting” and “Shallow Grave.” The slight concern here is Garland, who’s somewhat inconsistent as a writer; “Sunshine” and “28 Days Later” are both excellent genre pictures which collapse completely in their third act, and his script for Mark Romanek’s upcoming “Never Let Me Go” divided those of us here who read it. There’s no news yet on a start date or casting, but, with the money in place, we expect this will move forward fairly swiftly.
