Last fall, Dredd, based on the British cult comic Judge Dredd, starring Star Trek‘s Karl Urban, bombed at the box office, scraping in $6M versus its $35M budget.  Though the creators had hoped for a trilogy, those hopes seemed to have been snuffed.

But the movie may have found new life on home video, selling 300,000 copies in its first week alone.  Fans quickly started a petition to convince the studios responsible to move forward with a sequel.  Urban himself commented to Crave Online:

“I don’t quite know the full mechanics of how it breaks down in terms of what the real financial reality is to make a sequel to Dredd, but I am really heartened by the fact that just about every day, every single day, people come up to me and tell me how much they love that movie and how much they want to see more.”

As recently as Comic Con, he stated, “The more people that campaign for it, the more people that email, Twitter, write-in to Lionsgate saying ‘we want to see more of this,’ then the more likelihood we will get to see it; we’re certainly doing everything we can to make sure it happens.”

Now Rebellion, the company that publishes ‘Judge Dredd Magazine’ and ‘2000 A.D.’, the two graphic publications which have featured the brutal antihero since 1977, has thrown their support behind the grassroots movement.  (The strip was already once adapted to the big screen in the campy Sylvester Stallone vehicle in the 90s.)  Rebellion PR coordinator Michael Molcher stated:

“Not long after the film came out, this fan-run campaign started up. We’ve watched it and it put us in a bit of a difficult position. Do we step in and try to help out or what? So we’ve decided to officially endorse it as “2000 AD.” We can’t guarantee it’s going to succeed, but we want to say to the fans that your support is appreciated. There’s a massive following for the film, now, who have never read the comic. Perhaps there’s an opportunity for us to help spread the word about the movie and the comic, and down the line it might make a difference to getting a sequel.”

Molcher firmly clarified that this is simply the publisher’s endorsement of  this fan-driven campaign and in no way reflects the stance of anyone in the film industry who ultimately would be the ones to greenlight a movie project.  For their part, Rebellion will run ads for the petition in its comic magazines and will feature links on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Fan support has gotten sequels and films made in the past, most notably ‘Boondock Saints II’ and the film ‘Serenity’.  Recently, a Kickstarter campaign helped ensure a ‘Veronica Mars’ feature film, years after the television series ended.

Would you like to see more ‘Dredd’?  If so, definitely sign the petition by clicking here!  And leave any comments below!