For years after the abomination that was Danny Cannon’s 1995 barely-an-adaptation Judge Dredd, fans had to live with the image of Sylvester Stallone’s face in their minds, replacing the intentional facelessness of the anti-hero from the comics. But then, finally, Pete Travis’ Dredd, with help from Alex Garland’s script, helped replace that image as one of the better, albeit moodier, action films of 2012.
Unfortunately, however, the movie bombed hard enough to justify the elongated gap between films, only making back $35 million worldwide on a $50 million budget. So any talk of a sequel realistically died a whispering death even before the film did surprisingly well on the home video market. But during a recent Reddit AMA, the film’s producer Adi Shankar dropped word that the character is not gone forever, and will instead be reappearing in an upcoming short film.
When asked if there would be a Dredd sequel, Shankar replied, ““Probably not. But I am working on a Dredd short in the vein of #DirtyLaundry ...you're actually the first person to know about this…” No investigative journalism needed on that one.
While it’s one of the lowest ranking forms of silver lining there is, fans should still be enthusiastic. The The Punisher: Dirty Laundry short, directed by Phil Joanou and starring Thomas Jane, that Shankar refers to is a pyramid of stacked over-the-top violence, more in tune with Lexi Alexander’s batshit insane Punisher: War Zone than Jonathan Hensleigh’s take on the vigilante.
There’s no timeline on this thing yet, so you’ll just have to use your imaginations for now. In the meantime, you can watch the Dirty Laundry short below:
