EntertainmentPosted at: Jul 18 2025 7:01PM


Taika Waititi boards 'Judge Dredd' film as Hollywood scrambles for hot new package

Los Angeles, July 18 (UNI) Filmmaker Taika Waititi is stepping into the dystopian future of Mega-City One, as he is set to direct a new film adaptation of "Judge Dredd", a revival of the iconic British comic book character.
Waititi, best known for infusing genre films with subversive wit and emotional depth in "Thor: Ragnarok" and the Oscar-winning Jojo Rabbit, will direct the reboot, while Drew Pearce (The Fall Guy, Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation) is on board as screenwriter.
The production is backed by the character's rights holders Chris Kingsley, Jason Kingsley and Ben Smith of Rebellion Developments, alongside Roy Lee (Vertigo Entertainment), Jeremy Platt, Natalie Viscuso and Pearce himself, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
Sources say Pearce and Waititi both grew up with the books and are friends who have been trying to find a project to work on together for years.
Created in the late 1970s by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, Dredd debuted in the pages of weekly British anthology 2000 AD. He is a police officer in the bleak future metropolis of Mega-City One, part of a law enforcement corps that empowers officers to be judge, jury, and executioner.
The character and his stories were a satire on a judicial system taken to the extreme. Dredd proved hugely popular, engendering several more comics and comics strips, video and board games, books, and even postage stamps in the United Kingdom. It is said that over 100,000,000 comics and graphic novels have been sold.
The character was given the glossy Hollywood treatment in 1995 with a big-budget adaptation that starred Sylvester Stallone. It was poorly received. More warmly was the reception for Dredd, a 2012 adaptation that starred Karl Urban with a script by Alex Garland, the writer behind 28 Days Later, who also wrote and directed Civil War.
The logline is being kept under the visor, but the pitch is said to take inspiration more from the comics than the previous screen iterations, leaning into the world-building and dark humor. It is also meant to be a fun sci-fi blockbuster that nonetheless speaks to this moment in culture. The desire is to see the movie launch a Dredd universe that could be explored with additional movies and shows across various platforms.
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