Today marks another nail in the coffin of any chance for a release of ‘Dredd 2.’ In a recent interview, screenwriter Alex Garland feels that a sequel is extremely unlikely to happen and while that doesn’t mean it still couldn’t, I think with how long this is dragging out, the chances are getting slimmer by the day.
Garland was first asked directly if he felt that ‘Dredd 2’ was dead in the water to which he replied:
“As far as I’m concerned? Yeah it is. My hope is, and I actually think this will happen – somebody else will do it. Not to be all coy and silly about it, but I think our film was better than the first one, right? Just to be blunt. And the job of the next people is to make their film better than ours. And then if they do that, then finally, maybe this character will break out in the way that it deserves to. But we’ll see.”
Of course that could just mean that any chance he’ll be writing the screenplay is done with but I highly doubt we’ll be seeing this particular iteration of the character return. Of course, this is a pretty start change from what actor Karl Urban said only 4 months ago when he stated “there is a definite possibility. But, it is more likely that we will do the ‘Origins’ story with Dredd trekking through the cursed Earth to find the first Chief Judge Fargo.” Things apparently have changed since last year.
There were a lot of fans really pushing forward on a sequel and even having a fairly large petition signed and he feels for them.
“It makes me feel sad really. I feel grateful to the people who’ve attempted to get a sequel off the ground. And sorry that actually what happened was we let them down. Because the reality is that a film needs to acquit itself. It shouldn’t need a petition. And the truth is if it gets to the point where it needs a petition, it’s in big trouble anyway. That’s the cold hard reality of it. I feel a sense of residual guilt. It’s quite strong actually; it’s not that residual. Dredd was a very, very hard movie to work on, for all sorts of different reasons, and the reward would have been at the end of it that it all worked out. But it didn’t all work out. That’s the reality.”
Though he might be completely down on a petition we’ve seen many TV shows get another season, or at least part of a season, due to the so having one be effective isn’t that far beyond the realm of possibility.
What would we have seen in the next movie or two if the film was to be made?
“The first film we made it for about $35m, although quite a lot of that was to do with shooting it in 3D. Or a chunk of it. And we managed to make that film for that budget by locking it in a building essentially, sort of Die Hard-style. In the second film it was going to go out into the desert, which would be The Cursed Earth – people who know the comic book would know immediately what that means. And maybe throw some money at some key sequences. That’s how you do it I guess. I think we could have made it for another $30m, $35m type thing. We could have made it for $30m if we shot it in 2D. $35m maybe 3D I guess. Of that order. But the third one that would have been more expensive, because it would have been going back to the city and maybe bringing in some Dark Judges or something like that.”
A story line set in The Cursed Earth would have been absolutely phenomenal and it is a shame that we’ll probably never see this origin story come to be. A follow up set actually in the city and getting an idea of what this take on Mega-City One really looked like only has me wishing for more.
Are you sad to hear directly from the screenwriter that ‘Dredd 2’ is probably not happening or had you already resigned yourself to its fate? Share your thoughts below!
Source: IGN
