A few weeks ago during Comic Con Karl Urban was confirming to anyone who would ask that he will indeed be playing the titular character in Judge Dredd, the latest attempt to bring the comic character to the screen following Sylvester Stallone's disastrous 1995 attempt. I didn't think there was much more to confirm about Urban's role in the movie, considering how many times he happily talking about his casting, but Empire has at least changed tactics and gotten the news from the producers instead.

"We’ve cast a guy called Karl Urban to play Dredd," said producer Andrew Macdonald, as if we all didn't fall in love with Urban after Star Trek and Lord of the Rings. "We’ll be shooting in Johannesburg, it’s being directed by Pete Travis, we’re shooting with the people who did District 9 – and if we get it right, Alex has a couple of ideas for other stories as well. It’s not based on any one comic, and John Wagner is involved in every decision."

Macdonald also promised to erase pretty much all your bad memories of the terrible Stallone incarnation of the story:

"Our idea is to make 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."

I would wonder why you'd bother to cast an actor like Urban if his face is going to be hidden the entire time, but I know the comic fans would murder me for it, so I assume there's a good reason. Shooting is apparently set to start this fall.