Dredd

Pete Travis’s 2012 film adapts the 2000 AD strip afresh; it is not a sequel or remake of the 1995 Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone. Creator John Wagner called it, unlike that first film, a true representation of Dredd. Karl Urban never lifts the helmet: Dredd, he says, is the law’s faceless representative. Financing came from Britain’s DNA Films, India’s Reliance Entertainment and IM Global; shooting ran in South Africa. Peach Trees was designed as a forty metre square atrium, yet only a corner was built, three storeys high, half the planned width; about 300 of its 650 shots redress that corner into other levels with paint and reprojection. Some 95 percent of principal photography was native stereo, not converted. Anthony Dod Mantle shot on RED MX, SI2K and high speed Phantom Flex. The temp music for Slo-Mo scenes was slowed down Justin Bieber, which Paul Leonard-Morgan rebuilt with his own recordings. North America returned 13.4 million dollars, which Urban blamed on a lack of awareness. Disc sales hit 650,000 units in week one and a sequel petition drew over 80,000 signatures. A good fit if you want a film that never leaves one tower, taking its variety from the Slo-Mo passages, not new locations. Not for anyone unable to read stretched, high speed bullet wounds as an aesthetic.