Star of The Boys, Karl Urban, has commented once again on whether or not he will ever return as Judge Dredd in a sequel to his 2012 comic book movie Dredd. Since the debut of the movie all those years ago, fans have been clamoring to get Urban back under the helmet, a permanent grimace on his face, with the actor again reiterating his desire to step back into the role should the opportunity arise for Dredd 2.
“Listen, I would love to make it, I’m on the record saying that a bunch of times. I don’t know if that’s gonna happen. I think that the guys that own the rights to Dredd, Rebellion, I think they’re developing something called ‘Mega-City One’ and it would just be great to see more Dredd, whether it’s with me or not, it doesn’t matter. I’m a fan of Dredd and there’s so many great stories there. I’d love to see them. And I have no doubt that, someday, someone will make it. It’s just a matter of time.”
Karl Urban clearly has a real passion for the character of Judge Dredd, even stating here that he would be quite happy with someone else taking on the role in order to bring the character back to the big or small screen. At this time the future of the Judge Dredd property is somewhat uncertain, with no official plans for a sequel to Dredd having been made. Reports of a potential television series based on the 2000 AD property have emerged over the last year or so, but not much information has come out about them of late.
Despite Dredd being a huge success among fans and critics alike, it failed to make much an impact at the box office. The movie only managed to make approximately $41 million worldwide against a reported budget of $50 million. Thanks to this lackluster financial performance, a big-screen sequel to Dredd is incredibly unlikely. Complicating things even further is Dredd writer Alex Garand who has stated in the past that he would not be interested in returning for a follow-up.
“No. It was a pretty crude experience, for a bunch of reasons. At the end of it, I didn’t want to go back. I love Dredd, by which I mean I love the character, but I’m not in any hurry to do that again.”
Part of Garland’s negative experience with the movie comes down to him taking on the majority of the directing duties, but ultimately only being credited as the writer, whilst Pete Travis is credited as director. This is something that has been confirmed by Karl Urban himself, who credits the quality of Dredd to Garland.
“A huge part of the success of Dredd is in fact due to Alex Garland and what a lot of people don’t realize is that Alex Garland actually directed that movie. I just hope when people think of Alex Garland’s filmography that Dredd is the first film that he made before Ex Machina. You think about it in those terms; it goes Dredd, Ex Machina, Annihilation.”
Dredd is an excellent movie, and here is hoping that Urban will one day be given the opportunity again to bring the strict lawmaker back to life. There has often been talk of a Dredd TV show starring Karl Urban, but nothing has ever come of that over the years. This comes to us from Ebony Sage Youtube channel with Urban’s comments coming during C2E2 2020.
