Judge Dredd Movie Retitled 'Dredd'; Official Synopsis Revealed

In what could be a (smart) attempt to distance the film from the first failed Judge Dredd movie starring Sylvester Stallone, the upcoming adaptation of the British sci-fi comic series has shortened its title to simply Dredd.

Meanwhile, there's also an official synopsis for the film, which you can check out after the break.

IM Global, one of the studios producing the film, describes it like so:

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.

Aside from the "neo-noir" descriptor, this doesn't tell us much that we didn't already known, but it does further emphasize (in perhaps another attempt to distance itself from the first film) that this version of Dredd will be returning to its comic book roots. Producer Andrew Macdonald said previously that the film will be "a very hard, R-rated, gritty, realistic movie of Dredd in Megacity, so we've got to get the tone right. He's not going to take off his helmet. His bike is going to feel real. He's going to hit people and it's going to feel real."

Karl Urban (Star Trek, Doom) will play Dredd, acting opposite Olivia Thirlby (Juno, The Wackness), who plays Cassandra Anderson, aka Judge Anderson, "a telepathic rookie who shadows Dredd." Pete Travis (Vantage Point) is directing with a $45 million budget, from a screenplay by Alex Garland (28 Days Later..., Sunshine). An early script review can be found here.

[via Coming Soon]