Judge Dredd could be making a comeback. EW revealed today that entertainment company IM Global and UK game publisher Rebellion have partnered to create Judge Dredd: Mega City, a television show featuring the masked hero.
A Judge Dredd television show is in the works
It’s not clear whether it will connect to Pete Travis’s 2012 film, Dredd
It’s not clear whether it will connect to Pete Travis’s 2012 film, Dredd
Image: Lionsgate
Judge Dredd: Mega City will reportedly be an “ensemble drama about a team of Judges,” with IM Global Television CEO Stuart Ford, president Mark Stern (who helped develop Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica, Helix, and Defiance), and Rebellion owners Jason and Chris Kingsley serving as executive producers for the project. The project will be filmed in the UK, according to the BBC.
The character first appeared in the long-running British comics anthology 2000 AD. Judge Dredd is a violent, sometimes darkly funny series, set in a dystopian future where people live in overcrowded megacities, and police officers known as Judges are empowered to harshly sentence and even execute the criminals they track down. Dredd is one of the most uncompromising of those judges, and one of the most feared; he’s more anti-hero than superhero. In 1995, Sylvester Stallone played the character in the critically maligned adaptation Judge Dredd, but the 2012 Pete Travis film, Dredd, starring Karl Urban, has become a fan favorite.
Image: IM Global Television
What’s notable about this project is that the Kingsley brothers and Ford were also producers on Garland’s film, although it’s unclear whether the movie will be connected to the show in any way. Since the 2012 film, numerous fan petitions have circulated, requesting a sequel, and some cast members have indicated their interest in returning to the property. Speaking last year at a convention, Urban noted that Netflix and Amazon were in discussions about a potential revival. But a few months later, he revealed that the project wasn’t any closer to development.
In a statement, the Kingsley brothers said that fans of the film and character have been helpful in keeping interest in the project alive: “We aim to make a big budget production that will satisfy both our vast comics audience and the even greater general screen-watching public.” Let’s hope that any future adaptation does the character… justice.
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