Most everyone remembers the great Sylvester Stallone in the 1995 film Judge Dredd. About an all powerful judge, appointed the power of; police, judge, jury and executioner. A brief history; Judge Dredd is based on a 2000 AD Comic Serial first published in 1977 and was one of the longest running of all the companies publications, of course the company changed hands a couple of times. Join me for a preview of the movie Dredd 3D coming out Sept. 21st 2012. I am not going to focus on the history or adaptation origins of the movie, but the work of the team involved.
I will start where all movies should start, the story of course! what did you think I was going to say? Writer Alex Garland is famous for the Novel the Beach which the Leonardo DiCaprio film is based on. He wrote the screenplay for 28 Days Later and also wrote the screenplay for one of my favorite Sci-Fi movies, Sunshine. Also involved in the development of the original screenplay for the rumored Halo movie, which has yet to set a date. John Wagner along with artist Carlos Ezquerra co-created the character Judge Dredd and continues to be a leader in British comics. Wagner was born in Pennsylvania, USA, in 1949, and spent his first thirteen years in the States before moving to Scotland. In 1979 Wagoner with another writer attempted to pitch ideas to the Doctor Who TV series, but soon tired of all the re-writes required. The experience turned Wagner off TV writing.
Naturally next is the director. Pete Travis was a social worker before taking a post-graduate course in film-making. His first film, Faith premiered at the London Film Festival on November 11th 1997. He was interviewed and he said, the key to making a good football film was to not have any football in it. Faith is more about the spirit of football than the sport. I don't know if this trend in his directing continued through his career, but I can see evidence of a great director focused on the development of his characters. His other films include; End Game, Vantage Point, and work on the TV miniseries The Jury.
Based on these two elements that make up the production team I can't decide what kind of film I expect it to be, so lets add one more. The editor. Mark Eckersley was the first assistant editor on Billy Elliot. Eckersley and Garland also worked on Sunshine where he was the visual effects editor. His work on The Disappearance of Alice Creed is noteworthy, because it shows he is a good at cutting action and has experience with visual effects.
Now that you have an idea of who is involved and a little about their experience let's take a look at the trailer. Based on what you know now and what you see in the trailer you can decide whether you will see the film. Based on what I have seen I think I'll wait to see this one on DVD. Take a look!
