Welcome once again to our irregular round up of news from the 2000AD universe and let’s get straight to the best bit. You may remember from last time that there is a Facebook group dedicated to getting a sequel to last year’s excellent movie put into production, well now 2000AD themselves are throwing their weight behind the campaign too! They have set up an official petition as well, so please visit http://tinyurl.com/dreddsequel and add your name (and the names of everyone you know) to the list and let’s show the powers that be that it would be worth the effort.
Amazingly though, that wasn’t thing most exciting thing to come out of Comic-Con International in San Diego (SDCC) this weekend. During a video interview about his upcoming TV show Almost Human, Karl Urban was asked about the possibility of a sequel and said that he has “met with writer-producer Alex Garland and they are actively exploring the possibility of a sequel”. He continued:
“It’s certainly my hope that we get to make more… clearly it has found an audience. The home video sales for ‘Dredd’ just went through the roof. I think it sold 650,000 units in the first week.”
“I think the more people that campaign for it, the more people that email, Twitter and write into Lionsgate and say ‘We want to see more of this,’ then the more likelihood is that we’ll get to see that. We certainly are doing everything we can to ensure that happens.”
So with the publishers, star and writer all on board, surely it’s only a matter of time now before Lionsgate (the studio) and Danny Boyle’s DNA Films will take notice?
By all accounts, the 2000AD booth at the con was a great success, with signings and sketchings by acclaimed artist Henry Flint (who coincidentally is producing the art for the comic book sequel to the film due out in September) and great sales of the graphic novels, exclusive T-shirts and merchandise, including custom Judge badges from Planet Replicas. IDW publishing announced that they would be bringing another classic 2000AD strip, Rogue Trooper, to the US with a brand new comic and colored reprints of the original stories. Rogue Trooper, was co-created by Watchmen’s Dave Gibbons, and tells the story of the last surviving member of a genetically modified G.I. squad and his quest to avenge his fallen comrades after they were betrayed. Did I mention he was blue?
Finally, in non-SDCC news, if you fancy yourself as a budding comic writer or would love to illustrate one, then the folks over at fan-site Dredd Universe might have just the project for you. They’re calling it “Mega-City Two” and the idea is that they want to run a regular webcomic set in the city with a whole new bunch of characters. Mega-City Two has largely been forgotten about as far as Judge Dredd is concerned since the whole place was nuked (at his suggestion) to deal with a massive zombie infestation back in the epic “Judgement Day” story arc from 1992. The whole idea is very much at the planning stage so get in there and help shape what could be a great, if completely unofficial, extension to the world of Judge Dredd. I can’t wait to see where this one goes!
