Taika Waititi & Drew Pearce Team Up To Tackle 'Judge Dredd'
Taika Waititi's long-rumored Star Wars film might never see the light of day, but this doesn't mean that the writer, director, actor, and producer isn't busy.
One of his latest projects is a feature film about Judge Dredd. Waititi is set to direct and is teaming up with Drew Pearce to provide the script. The man surely has some experience in penning big action movies after working on The Fall Guy and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation.
Waititi and Pearce are friends and have been trying to find a project they could collaborate on for some time, and it seems that the story about the police officer who is judge, jury, and executioner in one person might finally be it.
The film, which has no release date, will be produced by Chris Kingsley, owner of the rights to Judge Dredd, Jason Kingsley and Ben Smith of Rebellion Developments, Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment, Jeremy Platt, Natalie Viscuso, and Pearce.
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Judge Dredd was created in 1977 by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, and first appeared in the British weekly anthology comic 2000 AD, before getting his own comics, magazines, novels, video games, audio dramas, and even a UK postage stamp. More than 100,000,000 comics and graphic novels of Judge Dredd are said to have been sold to this day.
The stories take place in the dystopian city Maga-City One, which covers most of the US east coast, and while being often brutal, they are also meant as a satirical exaggeration of British and American culture and police brutality.
Waititi's and Pearce's film won't be the first appearance of Dredd on the big screen. Back in 1995. Danny Cannon directed Judge Dredd, with Sylvester Stallone as the titular character. Intended as a big action blockbuster, the film was a flop, both critically and financially, and is widely considered one of Stallone's worst performances. In 2012, Karl Urban portrayed the cop in a film simply called Dredd, and while the critics were more positive this time, the film still failed to make its money back.
The new feature is not only said to stay closer to the source material (with Waititi and Pearce both being fans of the comics), but also to capture its dark humor, which would be fitting for someone like Waititi.
If the film is successful, it could act as a launching pad for a Dredd franchise with additional movies and TV shows.
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