Six years after Karl Urban put on the helmet of justice in Dredd, audiences are still clamoring to see him reprise the role. While nothing official is in the works, fans are hoping he’ll come back for the Judge Dredd: Mega-City One series that was announced last year. But as for a big screen sequel, Urban is still getting asked about it, and while chatting with Joblo.com about his new movie Bent, the actor dropped a bit of a bombshell. The Dredd that we saw was actually directed by Ex Machina and Annihilation‘s Alex 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.”
Excuse me? So what happened to Pete Travis, the guy actually credited with it? Urban doesn’t say and the interviewer doesn’t ask, instead switching gears to inquire if Garland would possibly return to direct a sequel he would get credit for. Urban said…
“Right? That would rock my world. 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.’”
The funny thing is, somebody at Wikipedia must have been listening because Garland’s filmography has been reorganized to put Dredd as his directorial debut. IMDB’s still draggin’ ass, though. Previously he was only listed as the film’s writer and producer, but those who followed the production know he was very involved with everything. So maybe at some point Travis was let go and Garland just took over? Whatever the case, it might explain why Dredd was so damn ahead of its time. Think about it, it was the R-rated comic book movie most of us would be clamoring for a few years later when Deadpool arrived.
