Reboots and remakes are a dime a dozen in contemporary Hollywood, with seemingly every studio harkening back to yesteryear to bring back a host of beloved cinematic IPs for better or worse. However, few of these nostalgic attempts at reinvigorating a franchise manage to satisfy the core fan base let alone recoup their production cost. And one such reboot to fall foul to the latter was 2012’s beloved and crucially under-appreciated Dredd.
Despite being held up by fans as an instant classic, Pete Travis’ visualization of Mega City One’s judge, jury and executioner was deemed a commercial dud, thereby extinguishing any potential hope of a sequel. Nevertheless, the film’s ardent supporters have been rallying for the story to continue ever since.
And, during the recent Chicago Comic-Con, Karl Urban himself stated that if a Dredd sequel were to make it to the big screen, it would in all likelihood be an origin story.
”There is a definite possibility. It’s more likely that we’ll do the Origins story, with Dredd trekking through the Cursed Earth to find the first Chief Judge Fargo.”
That particular arc —written by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra back in 2006 — would see Dredd venture out beyond the colossal walls of the aforementioned metropolis to retrieve Chief Judge Fargo’s stasis pod. Fans of the comics will recognize Fargo as the Judge from who Dredd was cloned, and was embodied by Max Von Sydow for the overly underwhelming 90s adaptation.
Alas, the fate of the Karl Urban-led Dredd series is very much in the hands of the fanbase. In fact, it wasn’t too long ago that the star called upon the audience to set up a Kickstarter campaign in search of funding. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see whether a Dredd 2 — be it a prequel or a sequel — ever comes to fruition in the near future.