WTF Happened to Dredd?

I am the law it's a crime when a kick-ass reboot suffers from the Dismal reputation of its predecessor in the case of the 2012 movie Dread it was a daring attempt to separate itself from the infamous 1995 Sylvester Stallone vehicle and returned the lethal Lawman to his Grim ultraviolent comic book Source material but it did not go as planned in terms of audience reception or financial success the R-rated release was a massive box office disappointment but in the decades since it received the death sentence at theaters the visceral action movie found an enthusiastic following and became a cult classic building interest and fueling hope that the character could return in a sequel or streaming series besides flopping at the box office Dred also went through a lengthy and turbulent production that ultimately called into question who exactly even directed the movie well dread himself actor Carl Urban exclusively gave us that answer keep your helmet on and find out what the [ __ ] happened to this movie [Music] the character of Judge Dredd first appeared in 1977 in the British comic series 2000 A.D set in a post-apocalyptic future the stories of dread take place in and around the sprawling Mega City one a crime-ridden metropolis where street cops called judges dispense Swift and usually extremely violent Justice dread was of course previously adapted into the notorious 1995 Stallone headliner a glossy and expensive production that successfully translated the overcrowded high-tech Mega City one but got almost nothing right about dread himself fans of the characters comic exploits were not pleased one of those fans was 28 Days Later screenwriter Alex Garland who wanted to make a more comic accurate version of dread and began working on drafts back in 2006 while still writing Danny Boyle's under-appreciated sci-fi movie Sunshine Garland ended up writing over a dozen drafts of dread with early iterations tackling dread's rivalry with judge death and the supernatural dark judges but Garland deemed that storyline too ambitious and admitted he couldn't quite crack the mythology required for a satisfying movie especially since the judge system hadn't been properly explained and it would all require too much comic knowledge for average audiences Garland also tried adapting the cursed Earth story arc from the comics but again found it too broad in scope after considering the origins and democracy comic storylines he decided to focus on a tighter day in the life story along the lines of training day meets Die Hard which dread comic co-creator John Wagner supported claiming the expansive sweep of the 1995 film was one of its glaring missteps in Garland's final version of the story dread is tasked with assessing Anderson a rookie judge with mutant telepathic Powers the pair responds to a grisly triple homicide call at a skyscraper slum called peach trees where ruthless criminal Mama produces a drug called slo-mo which makes humans perceive time at one percent normal speed trapped in the high-rise the two judges have to fight their way through hordes of Mama's gun-toting henchmen along with some crooked fellow cops according to Garland it was important to restore the comic characterization of dread as a hard-line law man who doesn't evolve much unlike the 1995 movie's clunky attempts to humanize the character as Garland said I didn't think dread could have a great Epiphany but there is definitely a change in him over the course of the movie he makes a very clear statement at the beginning of the film which he then contradicts at the end that's about as far as the shift goes Garland instead deliberately chose to give most of the character growth to Anderson as a way to counter dread's rigidity he also admitted to naming the movie's primary location peach trees also the script's working title after a restaurant in Shrewsbury England called the peach tree where he met Dredd co-creator John Wagner for the first time to discuss the project with a script finally in decent shape development on dread began in December 2008. DNA films partnered with IM Global and Reliance big pictures and by early 2010 they had raised 45 million dollars trying to cash in on the premium price 3D Trend after the gargantuan success of Avatar the companies chose to make a 3D version of the movie with Productions slated to take place in Cape Town South Africa in late 2010 the search began for a director at first moon director Duncan Jones was courted but despite enjoying Garland's script he declined due to having a much different vision for the character Jones claimed his ideas were weirder darker and funnier than Garland's lean means streamlined approach after Jones passed Vantage Point director Pete Travis was hired although Michael Bean had auditioned for the lead role dread would ultimately be played by another reliable genre regular Carl Urban the actor a long time fan of the comic underwent extensive physical training to portray what he called a beast of a man Urban reportedly also took a method approach retaining the characters Grimace raspy voice and helmet while on set creating such an intense vibe that crew members were deathly afraid of even looking at the constantly scowling actor Urban also performed many of his own stunts including driving the lawmaster motorcycle taking full ownership of the role like a true badass for adapting that lawmaster bike from the comics the preposterously oversized tires were ditched in favor of a heavily modified but fully functional 500 cc motorcycle dread's signature law Giver sidearm was a real operational firearm built up from a Glock 17 nine millimeter complete with automatic and semi-auto firing options and some obviously futuristic modifications when Olivia thoroughby was cast as Anderson she also went through weapons and martial arts training and said her look and attitude were partly inspired by Blondie singer Debbie Harry thoroughby noted that the character was meant to be morally murky in contrast to dred's clear-cut Black and White Law officer saying Anderson operates in a gray area where everything is enhanced or clouded by the fact that she knows what is going on in the very interior of a person despite her busy schedule on Game of Thrones Lena Heady pursued the role of chilling villain mama who was initially written as older and was intended to be one of the comics morbidly obese fatties she was given free reign to interpret the character getting a rare chance to show some of her actual tattoos and drawing inspiration from punk rock legend Patty Smith in heady's words I think of Mama like an old great white shark who is just waiting for someone bigger and stronger show up and kill her she's ready for it in fact she can't wait for it to happen she's an addict so she's dead in that way but that last knock just hasn't come for the visual design of the world and lead character further efforts were made to distance dread from the cartoonish 1995 Stallone Affair the decision was made to have a sleeker Lawman more like a lightweight boxer than a beefy rambo-style judge the trademark costume from the comic was altered in favor of more realistic tactical armor as Garland said if you did a very faithful adaptation of the uniform you'd have someone who if he got stabbed in the stomach he'd be in big trouble dread is out there on the front line so he needed protection one aspect of dread's iconic costume retained from the comics was his eyes shrouded by a police helmet which is never removed in the film unlike Stallone who ditched it entirely after just 15 minutes of screen time according to Urban the cryptic identity is meant to thematically reinforce dread as quote The Faceless representative of the law that is part of his Enigma you wouldn't get to the end of a Sergio Leone Western and say God I didn't even know the character's name it's irrelevant long before a director was even hired for dread Garland was already working with art director Neil Miller and head of visual effects John thumbe on how to visually represent Mega City 1 and the hallucinogenic effects of the slo-mo drug after experimenting with numerous methods and techniques including real bullets blood bags and various Prosthetics the slo-mo impact effect was achieved by shooting compressed air to create the appearance of Rippling skin when a purpose hit by a bullet or blast oddly enough the sound when people ingest the narcotic was inspired by Garland hearing a Justin Bieber song slowed to 1 800th its normal speed the drugs kaleidoscopic rainbow effect was influenced by Nature Documentaries that incorporated high-speed filming methods to capture animals moving in slow motion marrying the trippy imagery with hardcore violence to create a whole new aesthetic Garland wanted to see if he could create something he called so abstract that it becomes genuinely beautiful even if it's someone having their cheek blown out or their head crushing into concrete garland would push that mind-scrambling style to even further limits in his 2018 film annihilation dread officially began shooting in Cape Town South Africa in December 2010 with a budget that would eventually grow to 50 million the film was shot digitally with a new Phantom Flex high-speed camera used for the slo-mo sequences which were shot at 4 000 frames per second while much of the movie was filmed in 3D many 2D sequences were converted in post-production when oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire cinematographer Anthony Dodd mantle was hired he and Garland immediately set out to create a gritty realistic world with thrilling action sequences and began gravitating toward gangster crime movies for ideas Dodd mantle also hoped to evoke a painterly quality similar to such futuristic sci-fi Thrillers as Blade Runner and A Clockwork Orange He had never worked with 3D before but rejected the rules of the format and the limitations of the bulky equipment and instead helped develop a brand new handheld 3D camera that could capture extreme 3D close-ups of actors to retain a grounded aesthetic and a heightened extension of modern architecture many of the mega City one shots were actual footage of Cape Town and Johannesburg digitally enhanced in post-production partial interiors and exteriors of the brutalist structures were created on a Backlot and expanded with visual effects for the massive peach trees Atrium a real Cape Town location was used and seamlessly integrated with CGI and several other physical sets by now you might be wondering where director Pete Travis was during all of us well in October of 2011 the LA Times reported that Travis had been barred from the editing process over reports of irreconcilable differences and unsatisfactory footage leaving the major decision-making and reshoots to writer and producer Alex Garland that report prompted an unusual bit of damage control from the production in the form of a joint statement from Garland and Travis which claimed during all stages of the production Dred has been a collaboration between a number of dedicated creative parties from the outset we decided on an unorthodox collaboration to make the film however Karl Urban wasn't quite so interested in diplomacy or PR spin in an exclusive interview with joeblow.com Urban bluntly said quote 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 dread is the first film that he made before ex machina judgment time seems like the judge passed the final verdict on that okay so even beyond the behind the scenes drama why the hell did dread fare so poorly when it opened in North America on September 21st 2012. many suggest that it suffered from the lingering toxic reputation of Stallone's Judge Dredd perhaps it was the lack of major stars or a fall release date rather than summertime where comic adaptations tended to reach wider audiences maybe moviegoers had grown tired of the higher priced novelty of the 3D Trend whatever the case despite strong early reactions from Comic-Con and Festival screenings and a mostly positive critical response dread opened in sixth place for its first weekend with just 6.2 million dollars even less than the anticipated 8 to 10 million the movie completely disappeared from the top 10 the following week and finished its box office run with a miserable 13.4 million dollars domestic and 41 million worldwide before the movie was released Garland had ideas for a Trilogy and stated that grossing 50 million in America alone would ensure future sequels like never imagining The Dread would fail to even reach that figure globally in the view of Karl Urban dread's Doom was at least partly due to mishandled marketing even though Lion's gate reportedly invested 25 million in its advertising campaign including a satirical dread Report website and a tie-in mama motion comic Urban claimed that the film had zero audience awareness proclaiming quote dread represents a failure in marketing not filmmaking there was also Gareth Edwards movie The Raid which not only Bears a similar plot setting and intense level of violence but also earned better reviews when it was released on U.S screens several months before dred's theatrical debut even worse The Raid hit home video just weeks before Urban blasted his way through peachtree's block while the origins and timelines of the two Productions obviously made plagiarism impossible some still felt the raid made dread feel derivative or Superfluous but like so many movies that were unjustly ignored at the box office Dredd went on to become a beloved cult classic thanks to huge success on home video while all of the filmmaker's technical efforts to do something unique with the 3D format largely went unseen on the big screen the movie itself found a faithful fan base that continues to clamor for some kind of sequel Alex Garland has publicly expressed doubt that he would return but Karl Urban has been vocal over the years about the prospect of wearing the helmet once again expressing interest in playing the character for the proposed series Judge Dredd Mega City 1. while it remains to be seen if a live-action dread ever viciously dispenses Justice again on the big or small screen at the very least we got a satisfying action-packed adaptation of the classic Comic character and the Grim future he inhabits [Music] let us know your thoughts leave a comment in the comments for watching [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: JoBlo Originals

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Id: pXrU3GIrJpA

Length: 14min 39sec (879 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 14 2022