Several years ago came word of “Mega-City One,” an in development TV series adaptation of the “Judge Dredd” comic book series. The series would follow in the wake of the poorly received 1995 film with Sylvester Stallone, and the well-regard 2012 film starring Karl Urban and (mostly) attributed to “Ex Machina” and “Annihilation” writer/helmer Alex Garland.
The film disappointed at the box-office but the reviews were good even as it was compared unfavourably to the then recently released “The Raid,” a movie written and shot months after “Dredd” wrapped filming. As time has gone on, “Dredd” has only risen in esteem and there has long been excitement over either a sequel or Urban showing up on “Mega-City One”.
Urban has been open to the series idea but seems more keen on a sequel saying he would “dearly love to have the opportunity to play that again”. Rights to the franchise lie with the company Rebellion and this week Rebellion’s CEO Jason Kingsley offered an update to V2A Emergency Broadcast System (via Movieweb) on where things stand.
He says at least one if not more “Dredd” projects are effectively ready to go and so it’s a matter of scheduling, casting and safety:
“I want there to be a sequel [to 2012 movie Dredd]. We’ve got the rights back so we can do it, we’ve just got to get rid of this virus thing that’s going on at the moment, and then hopefully things can kick off in all sorts of different areas of making film and TV, it’s just, it’s all very messed up at the moment for everybody.
A lot of work has been done on all sorts of different scripts actually. So Mega-City One the TV show. Basically, we can’t go into production because of the [situation] and we’ve got scripts and everything is ready to go but the problem is, because of the [situation] and everybody’s funding changes and everybody’s shifting around.”
He also adds that if everything works out though they hope to get some familiar faces to come back, saying: “Well if we can get people back, you know, we even joked that it would be quite fun to get Stallone back.”
No streaming service or network has signed on for “Mega-City One” at present.
