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It looks like a longstanding rumor surrounding a modern sci-fi action classic has finally been confirmed. The movie in question is 2012’s “Dredd,” which was written by Alex Garland of “28 Days Later” and “Never Let Me Go” fame (among many other things). Garland has, in the years since that movie first hit theaters, become a notable director, helming everything from the Oscar-winning “Ex-Machina” to “Civil War.” But it turns out he also had a secret hand in directing Karl Urban as Judge Dredd.
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In a recent interview with GQ that saw Garland breaking down his filmography, the filmmaker revealed that he has done some ghost-directing in his day. While he didn’t get into specifics, it’s crystal clear he was talking about the beloved box office bomb that was “Dredd.” Here’s what Garland had to say:
“In truth, what happened, just to be candid about it, look, a lot of time has passed, I did end up on some films essentially doing ghost-directing. Something would be going wrong, or I would feel something was going wrong, and I saw the execution of scenes, and I would be thinking, ‘That’s not really what that scene is like, it’s missing this key component part, and it doesn’t quite make sense to me.’ I could also see when the film was released that people didn’t care whether that key component was there or not, but I cared.”
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While Garland doesn’t come right out and say it, sources close to /Film have further confirmed Garland’s involvement as a director on “Dredd.” That makes it crystal clear what he’s talking about here. That’s not to say Garland couldn’t have done some uncredited directing on other movies as well, but we need no longer wonder about “Dredd.”
Alex Garland’s fingerprints are all over Dredd
Just to recap, “Dredd,” which is based on the character of Judge Dredd from the long-running “2000 AD” comic book series, was directed by Pete Travis. That is, Travis is the one who was the credited director on the project. However, rumors have persisted for years that Garland, who wrote the screenplay, actually stepped behind the camera. Now, we have confirmation, more than a decade later, that’s exactly what happened.
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For what it’s worth, “Dredd” was met with critical acclaim but proved to be a major box office disappointment, pulling in just $41 million worldwide. In the years since then, Travis has largely directed television projects. Garland, on the other hand, has become a hugely successful director, having mostly recently co-directed A24’s gritty war movie “Warfare” alongside Ray Mendoza. Some of his other credits include “Annihilation” and the FX miniseries “Devs.”
That’s not to say that Travis is to blame for what happened with this movie. Lots went wrong along the way. At the same time, it now seems fair that Garland gets credit for making the movie what it is. Fans have clamored for a “Dredd” sequel for years, which isn’t going to happen. But that never-ending clamoring speaks volumes about what Garland accomplished in a tough situation. It’s also not surprising that he then went on to make his feature directorial debut with “Ex Machina” just two years later.
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At the end of the day, this doesn’t change anything about the movie itself, but it only serves to add more intrigue to the story of a film that a lot of people love (despite it not finding its audience at the time). It also only serves to demonstrate just how great of a filmmaker Garland actually is.
You can grab “Dredd” on 4K, Blu-ray, or DVD from Amazon.
