Though 2012’s comic book adaptation Dredd earned critical raves and a rabid fan following, it basically tanked at the box office, never even breaking even on its $45 million budget. However, fans banded together to launch the Make A Dredd Sequel campaign, which is still going strong. Home video sales have been huge as well, so many believe that Dredd 2 isn’t dead yet.
Last month, Karl Urban uploaded a YouTube response, thanking fans for their support and revealing that sequel talks were actually happening between the studio, Urban, writer Alex Garland and director Pete Travis. The announcement overjoyed fans, many of whom jumped to the conclusion that a Dredd sequel was close to becoming a reality. Now, unfortunately, producer Adi Shankar is raining on their parade.
In a conversation with DweebCast, Shankar said:
I’m going to tread lightly here. I feel like Karl made a small statement that got blown way out of proportion by news sites. Yeah there are conversations going on (about making Dredd 2), but I wouldn’t automatically go like, ‘Oh there’s conversations going on, so when’s the release date?’ When there’s no fucking script.
That’s not to say that Shankar doesn’t want to see a sequel made. He quickly added that, “I’m kind of the one freaking out and leading the charge, I think.” The producer just doesn’t want fans to get their hopes too high. In answer to the question of when fans might expect to see Dredd 2, he admitted, “Big question mark. TBD.”
The fact that Dredd was an independent film makes pushing a sequel forward a lot trickier, Shankar explained. It “wasn’t a studio movie, it was an independent movie,” he said, meaning that every market for Dredd had a different distributor. Essentially, “every one of those distributors has to sign off” for the sequel.
You can watch the whole interview below, but the gist is that, as much as Shankar wants Dredd 2 to happen, he doesn’t think enough has been done that fans should get their hopes up. Of course, that sequel talk is actually still in the news given Dredd‘s slim box office numbers is a testament to the fact that some people really, really want this movie to happen. Whether the studios will agree to it is another matter entirely.
