‘Judge Dredd’: Taika Waititi Reportedly Set to Direct New Movie!!

The judge will rule the streets again. In a surprise announcement, THR reported that a new Judge Dredd movie is in the works, and no one less than director Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok) is attached to helm it. Details of the upcoming adaptation are yet to come, but once again the story will adapt the comic book stories created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra. A release window is yet to be announced as well.

Many will consider Waititi and Dredd a match made in heaven. Per THR, the idea is to draw more from the character’s comic book origins rather than the previous iterations in cinema — which starred Sylvester Stallone (Tulsa King) in 1995 and Karl Urban (The Boys) in 2012. This means that the new Judge Dredd will have a bigger focus on worldbuilding and the characteristic dark humor that will make it an entertaining blockbuster movie to watch. Will Waititi go for an R rating, though? It’s too early to tell.

The screenplay of the upcoming Judge Dredd reboot will be handled by Drew Pearce, who previously wrote Fall Guy, Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. Pearce and Waititi are reportedly huge fans of Judge Dredd, who grew up reading the sci-fi stories and have been trying to get a project going together for years. However, Waititi is attached to some major titles at the moment, which might make Dredd’s adaptation not as brisk as fans would like.

Who Is Judge Dredd?

Created in the 70s, Judge Dredd centers around a cop trying to survive in the extremely violent and dystopian Mega-City One. Officers like Dredd are “street judges” allowed to take law enforcement into their own hands, and they can interrogate, arrest, sentence, and even kill citizens they deem criminals. Wagner and Ezquerra created the story to serve as a critique of modern urban themes like authoritarianism and police brutality, and fans responded pretty well to it — aside from feature films, the comic books were also adapted into video games and audio dramas.

The 2012 version of Dredd — directed by Pete Travis (Vantage Point) and written by Alex Garland (28 Years Later) — was considered a fast-paced and thrilling adaptation, and it landed a pretty good 80% Rotten Tomatoes score. The 1995 version, however, was slammed by critics and fans alike, meaning that Waititi and Pearce have perfectly good examples of what to do and what to avoid if they want this new iteration to set up a new franchise.