WHAT. THE. HELL.
I bet you didn’t have this on your bingo card. THR is reporting that one of the summer’s hotter packages has Taika Waititi directing a new Judge Dredd movie, with ‘Fall Guy’ and “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” scribe Drew Pearce writing the script.
Sources say the pair, longtime friends and fellow Dredd-heads, have been looking for a project to collaborate on for years—and now they’ve found it in the dystopian world of Mega-City One.
The new take is said to draw more directly from the source material than either of the previous adaptations; more brutal satire, world-building, and black humor. Waititi is certainly a choice to direct this. Paul Verhoeven would have been the absolute perfect director for the source material at hand.
The 1995 Sylvester Stallone version was widely panned. The 2012 “Dredd,” with Karl Urban in the role with a screenplay, and ghost direction, by Alex Garland, failed to ignite the box office, but eventually gained cult status. There have been fan petitions and rumors have swirled for years of a sequel, but today’s news has, sadly, killed off any chance of a sequel ever happening.
This new version is reportedly designed as a franchise-starter, a potential launchpad for a full-blown “Dredd-verse” of films and shows. No story details have been revealed, but the vision is said to aim for a sci-fi blockbuster tone that still hits on deeper cultural and political themes.
There’s no studio officially attached yet, but THR sources are saying a handful of them are highly interested, and currently bidding. In acquiring Waititi and Pearce’s IP.
In the meantime, Waititi’s “Klara and the Sun,” an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s sci-fi novel, starring Amy Adams and Jenna Ortega, is ready to hit the fall fests. He also, supposedly, might, still make a “Star Wars” film for Kathleen Kennedy. Not to mention a live-action remake of “Flash Gordon,” “The Incal,” and “James.”