Giant Freakin Robot

When it was released in September of 2012, Dredd was an absolute bomb at the box office. But the movie found a new life as people discovered it on the home video market, where it broke sales records and gathered a rabid fan base. Ever since, people have been clamoring for a sequel to the ultraviolent actioner. While that’s very unlikely to happen, producer Adi Shankar recently released this video that explains all of the things that would need to fall into place for Dredd 2 to actually happen. Check it out for yourself below.

“I started out as Eomer, and next I played McCoy. But once I put that helmet on, it sparked my greatest joy.”

So begins the most epic appeal for a sequel to ever exist. Just imagine it: Dredd 2: The Musical. Created by the massive talents at Legolambs, this cry for more Judge Dredd is absolutely amazing, from the booming music to the speaker-rattling vocals of Jon and Al Kaplan. If petitions and emails and social media swarms can’t get DNA Films and company to make this follow up a reality, this musical is more than able to take the task on.

We’re used to living in a world where adaptations of comic books are some of the biggest movies that come out in any given year (Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy recently topped $568 million world wide and is currently the highest grossing domestic movie of 2014). Pete Travis’ Dredd, however, was a complete and utter failure at the box office when it was released in September 2012. Despite only bringing in $35 million worldwide, it found a second life on home video, breaking sales records, and fans (including most of us here at GFR) have been clamoring for a sequel ever since. Even with a tidal wave of popular grass roots support, it’s doubtful that this is ever going to materialize, but that’s never stopped star Karl Urban from talking about it. And he recently said if we do see another addition to the franchise, it will likely be a prequel or an origin story, rather than a straight sequel.

Talking at Chicago Comic-Con the other day, the subject of another Dredd movie came up, or maybe Urban brought it up, as he seems to do on his own with regularity. When the topic appeared, he said, “Why yes, there is a definite possibility. But, it is more likely that we will do the origins story with Dredd trekking through the cursed earth to find the first Chief Judge Fargo.”

Karl Urban has made our hearts grow three sizes in recent months, reassuring Dredd fans he and others were “working very very hard” to try and get a sequel to the surprisingly badass 2012 flick. Dredd has certainly developed a devoted following, especially since its home video release, but it was nevertheless a disappointment at the box office, earning only $35 million worldwide, against a budget of $50 million. In a new interview, producer Dredd producer Adi Shankar is here to rain on our parade, suggesting that Urban’s statements were blown out of proportion.

Far be it for me to begin a 2000 A.D.-related story crassly, but I thought the only time I’d hear the words “Dredd 2” and “hard” in a sentence would be in my fan fiction stories, which I only write while wearing a helmet. And yet here Karl Urban is, telling the world that people are working very, very hard to bring a Dredd sequel to fans. If anybody knows what happens to people who lie about such insanely important things, it should be a Judge, right?

Let’s all take a moment to reflect on how awesome it is that not only is Karl Urban giving Dredd fans a shout-out through 2000 A.D.‘s YouTube page, but he’s also telling people eyes-to-eyes that he, screenwriter Alex Garland (also of 28 Days Later fame), and DNA films are trying to get this film made. So no, he isn’t just telling a convention crowd that he’d love to see a sequel made, and he’s not just saying he hopes the fan support will be enough. He’s saying they’re working hard on it.

Dredd may have tanked, and tanked hard, when it was released in August 2012, but ever since it found a wider audience on home video, fans have been clamoring for more more more. We’ve heard that talks have been going on, though nothing is concrete. Apparently for one fan, that’s not nearly good enough, so he went on out and made up a kick ass trailer for an imaginary sequel, and I have to say, this is one that I would actually like to see.

In this pseudo trailer, cut together by a YouTube user named Whiplash Dynamo, the titular law-enforcement badass takes his particular brand of black-and-white justice outside the walls of Mega City One. Beyond the cramped urban environs of the crime-ridden megatropolis, lies the Cursed Earth.