New 'Dredd' Photos Feature Scowling, Olivia Thirlby And Lena Headey

Helmets and Scowling. Could be a new detective show, or a sludgy metal band from Ohio. In this case, those two words are simply the first things that come to mind when looking at new photos from Dredd, which is the second and hopefully superior adaptation of the long-running Judge Dredd comic book series. Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, and Lena Headey star under the direction of Pete Travis. This batch of pics shows us a bit more than we've previously seen of the dour and harsh world in which Dredd and his burg Mega-City One exist. Check them out after the break, and see if they make you crack a smile.

Empire has the pics, some of which were scanned by fine readers at SuperHero Hype. That's Olivia Thirlby as Judge Cassandra Anderson and Lena Headey as the villainous Ma-Ma. This is the synopsis for the film, which opens in the US on September 21, 2012, but likely much earlier in the UK.

DREDD takes us to the wild streets of Mega City One, the lone oasis of quasi-civilization on Cursed Earth. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is the most feared of elite Street Judges, with the power to enforce the law, sentence offenders and execute them on the spot – if necessary. The endlessly inventive mind of writer Alex Garland and the frenetic vision of director Peter Travis bring DREDD to life as a futuristic neo-noir action film that returns the celebrated character to the dark, visceral incarnation from John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra's revered comic strip.