Karl “Dammit Jim, I’m The Law, Not a Doctor” Urban says a sequel to last year’s Dredd is “not off the agenda.”
A funny thing happened with the 2012 action flick Dredd. First we got a trailer, and what little response to it I saw was far from uniformly positive. Then the movie came out and it tanked, seemingly confirming the opinions of the naysayers. But critics were surprisingly positive about it, and an awful lot of people who actually went and saw the film said it was good. Really good.
Sadly, while Dredd’s $45 million budget was small potatoes compared to big-time Hollywood summer blockbusters, its worldwide box office take was even smaller, coming in at just $35.6 million. That’s not the kind of number that screams “sequel” but even so, Urban told Collider.com that there actually is hope for a follow-up.
“Interestingly enough, I did have breakfast with [screenplay writer] Alex Garland this morning. It’s not off the agenda,” he said. “Clearly everyone has woken up to the fact that an audience has found this movie and loves it. It’s entirely possible, and if people want to see another installment then they should be vocal about that because it can happen. The power of fandom can resurrect projects.”
“It can happen” is a long way from “it will happen” or even “we’re working on making it happen,” but it’s a lot better than “it’s not going to happen.” Furthermore, while Dredd tanked on the big screen, it was a big hit on DVD and digital, selling 650,000 units across DVD and Blu-ray in its first week of release and also topping the weekly download charts. So it might actually happen – and if it does happen, maybe this time around we should think about going to see it.
Source: Collider.com, Lionsgate
