Those two names have studio heads and executives sitting up this week as one of the hottest packages of the year hits the Hollywood marketplace.
Waititi, the Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit filmmaker, is attached to direct a new feature film take on Dredd, the popular and violent British comic book character.
Drew Pearce, the scribe known for his action movie-filled resume thanks to titles such as Fall Guy and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, is attached to write the script.
Producers include Dredd rights holders Chris Kingsley, Jason Kingsley and Ben Smith of Rebellion Developments, Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment, Jeremy Platt, Natalie Viscuso and Pearce.
Sources say Pearce and Waititi both grew up with the books and are friends who have been trying to find a project to work on together for years.
Created in the late 1970s by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, Dredd debuted in the pages of weekly British anthology 2000 AD. He is a police officer in the bleak future metropolis of Mega-City One, part of a law enforcement corps that empowers officers to be judge, jury, and executioner. The character and his stories were a satire on a judicial system taken to the extreme. Dredd proved hugely popular, engendering several more comics and comics strips, video and board games, books, and even postage stamps in the United Kingdom. It is said that over 100,000,000 comics and graphic novels have been sold.
The character was given the glossy Hollywood treatment in 1995 with a big-budget adaptation that starred Sylvester Stallone. It was poorly received. More warmly was the reception for Dredd, a 2012 adaptation that starred Karl Urban with a script by Alex Garland, the writer behind 28 Days Later, who also wrote and directed Civil War.
The logline is being kept under the visor, but the pitch is said to take inspiration more from the comics than the previous screen iterations, leaning into the world-building and dark humor. It is also meant to be a fun sci-fi blockbuster that nonetheless speaks to this moment in culture. The desire is to see the movie launch a Dredd universe that could be explored with additional movies and shows across various platforms.
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