A Sylvester Stallone Sci-Fi Flop Nearly Became An Action-Horror Movie Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger

It took a long time for Sylvester Stallone to play a comic book hero. The man became an instant star with his self-written "Rocky" in 1976 and spent the following decade and a half becoming one of Hollywood's pre-eminent action heroes, alongside his longtime rival Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sly and Schwarzenegger were the epitome of the ultra-masculine action heroes we associate with the '80s, but throughout that entire decade and the first half of the '90s, neither played a superhero on-screen.

Schwarzenegger wouldn't end up taking the comic book movie plunge until 1997, when he was guilted into playing Mr. Freeze in the historic blunder that was "Batman & Robin." But Sly actually made his superhero debut prior to that, starring as the titular judge in 1995's "Judge Dredd," the most nonsensical science fiction movie to predict our terrifying present. Following what was the first of several career lows in the late-'80s and early-'90s, Stallone had maintained his superstar status with "Cliffhanger" and "Demolition Man," both of which bowed in 1993 and were box office successes. But "Judge Dredd" dashed all the goodwill Sly had earned with those films, proving to be a critical and commercial dud.

Based on the "2000 AD" comics in which the Judge Dredd character debuted, "Judge Dredd" follows the titular anti-hero, who serves as a judge, jury, and executioner while patrolling the dystopian streets of future metropolis Mega City One. When he's framed for murder by his own half-brother, the most famous judge in Mega City One has to clear his name and prevent an army of superhuman clones from destroying his hometown. Sadly, none of that made for a very good film, and "Judge Dredd" has lived in infamy as one of the worst Stallone movies ever since ... which raises the question of whether the unrealized version starring Schwarzenegger would have been better. 

Yes, prior to Stallone coming onboard, there was an alternate "Judge Dredd" script in the works — one that was not only more faithful to the source material, but would have also been a horror movie-style adaptation headlined by Sly's longtime rival.

When "Judge Dredd" debuted in 1995, it had gone through multiple changes before becoming the misfire it eventually was. Several writers had been attached to the project throughout its development, one of which was British scribe Peter Briggs ("Hellboy"), who spoke to Bloody Disgusting in 2020 about his vision for the film. The writer recalled receiving a call from Lloyd Levin, of producer Larry Gordon's company, about making a "Judge Dredd" movie. Having grown up with the "2000 AD" comics, Briggs was very excited at the prospect.

Initially, Levin and Gordon were set to co-finance the film alongside fellow producer Edward R. Pressman. Unfortunately, things quickly turned sour between Gordon and Pressman. As a result, Briggs found himself caught in the middle, with Pressman's side wanting the writer to work on a version of "Judge Dredd" that would have been directed by Tony Scott and was set to star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Briggs followed Pressman and found himself in the position of being able to bring one of his favorite childhood heroes to the big screen. In conceiving of his version of "Judge Dredd," the writer explained, "If you only get the chance to make one movie, you go with the strongest villain. So I wanted to do, from the outset, Judge Death. Because, well, he's awesome." Judge Death was a Dark Judge, which in the comic books were undead versions of the Judges who existed in a parallel dimension called Deadworld. "They are the antithesis of what the Judge system stands for," Briggs noted, "being from a parallel universe in which all life is outlawed. Life is the ultimate crime, and death is the answer. From the outset, for me there was no other storyline other than that."

Briggs' idea for a "Judge Dredd" movie would have seen the titular antihero returning to Mega City One after a break of several months. There, he teams up with sidekick, Judge Barbara Hershey, and begins patrolling the streets once again. After dealing with assorted Mega City One riffraff, the partners eventually encounter Judge Death, who shows up in the city due to him having some mysterious connection to Dredd. This wasn't the only villain in the unmade film, either. Briggs also created a new character called The Umpty Candy Killer, a serial killer who was luring victims with a highly-addictive substance called Umpty Candy. 

The rest of the story played out much like the "2000 AD" comics in which Judge Death was first introduced, with the villain summoning more Dark Judges before killing the citizens of Mega City One en masse and destroying the metropolis. As Briggs recalled, "While it's comic book, while it's science fiction, it was also [meant to be a horror film]. If you've read the comic, it was that. Death putting his hands into people, and so on. We would have been firmly venturing off into 'horror' territory."

Lamentably, Peter Briggs' vision for "Judge Dredd" never came to fruition due to what sounds like a nightmarish behind-the-scenes development process that ultimately resulted in the catastrophe that was Sylvester Stallone's 1995 dud. Despite Briggs meeting with Tony Scott about his "Judge Dredd" script, the film's producers eventually brought on "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" screenwriter William Wisher — who ultimately co-wrote the ill-fated final version of "Judge Dredd." The producers' idea was to have Wisher and Briggs produce "competing drafts" that Arnold Schwarzenegger was evidently supposed to choose between. Then, Briggs was informed by producer Charlie Lippincott that he was actively trying to kill the writer's version of the project, prompting Briggs to leave it all behind. As the screenwriter remembered it, "I left. Schwarzenegger left. Then Tony Scott left. I think this all happened very, very rapidly. I don't know what their reasoning was. I think after Tony left, Stallone came on. And then [eventual 'Judge Dredd' director] Danny Cannon."

Briggs did note that depicting the Dark Judges on-screen in the mid-'90s would have been difficult without the advanced CGI available today, and in that sense he's glad the film never happened. But whatever his version of the movie would have been, it surely would have been better than Stallone's "Judge Dredd," which the actor has acknowledged was a muddled affair (though the film's production design has been praised ever since it debuted). That said, a producer was apparently adamant that Schwarzenegger should take his helmet off in Briggs' unmade version. That's a big no-no for the comic book version of the character and would surely have alienated a large part of the fanbase, as it did when it happened in the 1995 movie that eventually came out.

Still, it would have been really interesting to see Arnie at the center of what sounds like it would have been an R-rated action horror flick. Horror isn't exactly a genre the Austrian Oak is known for, so audiences would surely have been at least curious to see how Briggs' version of the movie panned out. Meanwhile, Stallone went on to have better luck with the superhero genre following what was another career low in the early 2000s (one that saw Sly almost accept a role in a fan-made Batman film). The actor ultimately went on to play Stakar Ogord aka Starhawk in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" and "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" before voicing King Shark in James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad."