The Making of Judge Dredd (Stallone Version)

[Steven Sterlacchini]

New to me, but some of you may have seen it before.

Interesting stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kuAIvEN6Pg&feature=endscreen&NR=1

[locustsofdeath!]

That's really cool. Seeing this featurette out of context would make one think Judge Dredd was an arsom sci-fi film. Alas.

[Steven Sterlacchini]

This came up as a suggestion with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRN-X74VVK4&feature=fvwrel

[Adrian Bamforth]

I always appreciated that the Stallone film came at the back end of model effects and physical effects, before everything wents basically weightless with CGI. Ironically, the only CGI in the clip is the bit that shows you how the cameras move.

[sans saisons]

Here's something of a between the lines version of the JUDGE DREDD making of book (Jane Killick, David Chute, Charles M. Lippincott), with some external sources. Hopefully, it'll shed some light on how the film come out as it did.

====

1978-83

"Charles M. Lippincott... who had masterminded the campaign and licensing for the STAR WARS film, and who had worked effectively with Alfred Hitchcock on his last film, FAMILY PLOT, and with Ridley Scott on ALIEN,... first fell in love with the cinematic properties of Dredd around 1978, and optioned the property from IPC Publishers Ltd after a full year of frustrating negotiations... In 1980, Dredd's guardians at Britain's IPC didn't even bother to respond to Lippincott's queries about the movie rights... It wasn't until 1983, when a young British documentarist allowed his claim to lapse, that IPC began to negotiate with Lippincott in deadly earnest. They hired the lawyers that George Lucas had used for his work in England and spent the better part of a year haggling over every conceivable detail." (Making Of)


1985

THE JAN STRAND DRAFT

"In 1985, we started talking to comic book writers and fans. Jan Strand, I think, was the first writer. The first comic book fan was Ed Neumeier, who was a fan of DREDD. Charley was in Ed's office and saw either DREDD comic books or DREDD posters, and it turned out that Ed had tried to buy the rights, but couldn't, because, you know, we had them. And, of course, he went on to co-write ROBOCOP, which borrowed liberally, to say the least, from DREDD." (Susan Nicoletti, former Lippincott development executive)


1986

"My first awareness of Dredd as a character was when Charley [Lippincott] brought it to me in 1986. It had a long history and there was a constituency that was very passionate about it... It just seemed to present a whole gestalt cinematic world and a strong central character that was distinct from all other heroes, a genre that was fresh... Like CONAN, it seemed so logical and distinct, I never doubted its viability as a movie or that it would be worth the effort." (Edward Pressman, executive producer)

"Charley brought Ed the material and made him, Ed, his partner. They were each responsible for half the money, although in the end, I think Ed was responsible for most of the money, and he probably used that as a negotiating lever later on." (Caldecott 'Cottie' Chubb, former Pressman Senior Vice President for Production)


1987

"[I remember] going out to see a preview of ROBOCOP and coming out pretty depressed. It was a demoralizing experience because we realized how much had been taken from DREDD... From then on, it was essential that we say to every writer and director that we talked to that it can't be too much like ROBOCOP." (Edward Pressman, executive producer)


1988-89

THE TIM HUNTER / JAMES CRUMLEY DRAFT

"[Charley and I] were approaching a young director named Joseph Ruben [THE STEPFATHER]... He was never very enthusiastic about the character to begin with... But unbeknownst to us, Ed was as good as promising [DREDD] to Tim Hunter... He and his writing partner James Crumley (the acclaimed hard-boiled detective novelist of THE LAST GOOD KISS and THE MEXICAN TREE DUCK) came up with an approach that we thought was interesting." (Susan Nicoletti)

"Crumley and Hunter's first draft screenplay, which was completed in 1988, is great fun to read. With a plot set in motion by an uprising among the mutants of the Cursed Earth to win recognition and social equality as human beings, it teems with grotesque supporting characters and down-and-dirty futuristic local color, and it incorporates several of the most vivid characters and storylines from the 2000AD comic book stories, including the PSI-powered Judge Anderson and the scavenging Angel Gang from the Cursed Earth. At the center of it all is the cadaverous Judge Death, a mirror-image "Dark Judge", who invades Mega-City One from another dimension." (Making Of)

"Somewhere in there was the Judge Dredd script; someone disputed a credit on it, and as a consequence all of the writers who ever worked on it had to be copied on everything that had happened. There were 16 writers! Tim and I were the first and we thought we were writing a $20 Million movie. Then the [writers' strike in Hollywood] came and they wanted to do it for $8 Million." (James Crumley, screenwriter - The Crime Factory, 2012)

"It was too complex and expensive. The budget estimate was something like $60 Million, and this was several years ago. It just wasn't something we could pursue." (Edward Pressman, executive producer)


"When Cottie Chubb joined Pressman as a production executive in mid-July 1988, he looked over the firm's roster of dormant projects and recognized DREDD as a property that still had potential, and began pushing for it." (Making Of)


THE HOWARD CHAYKIN / JOHN FRANCIS MOORE TREATMENT

"It was at this point that another comic book writer-artist, Howard Chaykin, was recruited by Lippincott and Nicoletti... His vaguely DREDD-like future-cop chronicle with a distinctive vein of sly satire, AMERICAN FLAGG, has emerged as a pivotal pop culture influence of the 1980s; neither Frank Miller's BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT nor the film ROBOCOP would have been the same without it." (Making Of)

"When [Chaykin] got up at an early meeting, he blew everybody away with a great pitch that had to do with Judge Dredd as the Lone Ranger... Everybody said, 'That's fantastic, go write it. Go do a treatment'. Well, to make a long story short, he came back with a treatment that had absolutely nothing to do with the pitch that he had given.

The treatment had Judge Dredd out in the Cursed Earth having hallucinations with an animated statue of Blind Justice. It was just awful. There followed a long period of working with Howard and his [AMERICAN FLAGG writing partner, John Francis Moore], who, at 20 years old, was having the first love affair of his life and could barely focus on anything else. He didn't want to be there, he was dreamy and lovestruck." (Susan Nicoletti)


1990-91

"Several other writers and directors came and went on into the early 1990s." (Making Of)


THE MARC LAFIA DRAFT

"I loved this comic book, had collected it for years. It took 9 months to get the assignment, sitting in the waiting room of Ed Pressman's office, the producer of what promised to be a new franchise film after the success of ROBOCOP and TERMINATOR and BATMAN. I had almost written it all by the second interview, but had to wait to get the job.

I thought of Dread in a hilariously excessive over the top world; more like Peter Sellers in THE PARTY or John Klise, it was exuberant, excessive and ribald. Pressman called me a day after he sent a driver to pick the script, called the next day, saying I had nailed it, it was brilliant and, more importantly, after 3 years and almost a million dollars of development money, he now had a script he was prepared to put into production." (Marc Lafia - Official Website)

"Ed is impulsive... 'Call the agent, sign the deal', without even telling us what he's doing." (Susan Nicoletti)

"A month later, with other producers [Lippincott & Nicoletti], the talk was about a harder action picture and Sylvester Stallone, with whom they ultimately made the picture and it failed miserably." (Marc Lafia - Official Website)

"With Pressman onboard, there was a steady parade of writers... He'll have somebody come into a meeting and spout all this stuff, and everybody will say, 'Well, this guy's an idiot, get him out of here.' And then, 6 months later, Pressman is saying, 'Remember that idiot? I hired him.'" (Susan Nicoletti)


?THE CRASH LEYLAND DRAFT?

"Peter Hewitt [BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY] was in the picture for a while and then he was out of the picture, and then, two years later, he was going to direct the picture. It was like a series of jack-in-the-boxes that kept popping up and down." (Susan Nicoletti)


1992

"At that time, we still had no acceptable script and no development capital to get things moving, so Larry Gordon offered to develop DREDD with us [through his company, Largo Entertainment], and we agreed." (Edward Pressman, executive producer)

"[JUDGE DREDD] came about because of [Larry Gordon's associate] Lloyd Levin, who was the producer I was dealing with at Largo on ALIEN VS PREDATOR, which at that point was going to be a joint financial deal with Ed Pressman. And Lloyd Levin said to me, how do you feel about writing JUDGE DREDD?... [Ed Pressman and I] talked about this over the Fourth of July weekend in 1992. And they offered me the Rico story." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - The Fusion Interview, 1996)


THE MICHAEL DE LUCA OUTLINE (THE RICO STORY)

"[The Rico story was] to begin the Dredd screen saga with the bare hint of an 'origin story', embodied in a single brief comic book story about Dredd's long-lost black sheep brother, Rico... It was this narrative choice, according to Pressman, that 'catalyzed the entire project.'.. The secret of Dredd's origin is built into the solution of the mystery he spends most of the movie trying to solve; in investigating this case, he investigates himself." (Making Of)

"I think the idea of a Rico story was originally suggested by Michael De Luca, and he did an outline that was sort of inspired by ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES. So the idea of taking a tried-and-true structure and working from that was a solid notion." (Edward Pressman, executive producer)

"I said, "No, I don't want to do the Rico story because it's not sufficiently interesting to me. I want to do the Judge Death story." And they all shifted uneasily in their chairs. Judge Death had pretty much been the one thing that Ed Pressman wanted to do, but the producer who actually had bought the comic rights - a guy called Charlie Lippincott - wasn't so keen on it." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - The Fusion Interview, 1996)

"But then, around 1992, we attracted some more investment and consequently, had more capital of our own script development. So I went back to Larry and said, 'I'd really like to develop this myself'. He agreed and we signed a document that basically let us out of any obligations as long as we gave him a first look at it. There was not even any commitment on our part that we had to give it to him; we simply had to give it to him."(Edward Pressman, executive producer)


"During that time, Arnold Schwarzenegger came to us, out of the blue, and told us he wanted to be Judge Dredd." (Edward Pressman, executive producer)

"[Alongside Schwarzenegger, there was] Tony Scott loosely attached [as director]...  Tony and I clicked. We had exactly the same rock 'n' roll take on the project." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - Interview, Starlog Platinum Edition Volume 5)

"Now all of a sudden, Larry started taking the position that we couldn't make the picture without him." (Edward Pressman, executive producer)

"I had to choose between that and a three-picture deal for Largo, which included DIE HARD 3 as a possible carrot. They fought over me very viciously, and it wasn't pretty." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - Interview, Starlog Platinum Edition Volume 5)

"The Largo/limbo period ended suddenly when the company's modestly budgeted thriller UNLAWFUL ENTRY opened and made $11 Million in 3 days. According to Nicoletti, 'Largo decided right then and there to stick to medium-budget movies that could make a lot of money, and they backed away from JUDGE DREDD.'" (Making Of)

"We lost a good 9 months over this stupid tug of war, this little greed festival." (Edward Pressman, executive producer)


THE PETER BRIGGS / ANDY BRIGGS DRAFT (JUDGE DEATH)

"Pressman strongly favored the supernatural menace of Judge Death, which Lippincott and Nicoletti resisted - partly because a creature, who looked so lethal on page would be almost impossible to bring fully to life on the screen." (Making Of)

"I was an effects cameraman, I knew they could have pulled Judge Death off. They could have made it as a combination of puppetry, live action, CG and then CG'd the wires out later, and it just wouldn't have been a problem." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - The Fusion Interview, 1996)

"Inevitably, [Death]'d have to be a special effect rather than a human being... [Ideally, he'd be] a real actor with some cutting edge computer-generated imagery; imagine a walking skeleton with the leering face of a great character actor." (Making Of)

"We're talking about Judge Death here - all the comic fans know what Judge Death is - and it was being diluted down to the point where he's Captain Kangaroo. He just wasn't a threat any more." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - The Fusion Interview, 1996)


"At that time, in 1991, Judge Death was out of the question... A confrontation with the implacable and inhuman Judge Death doesn't help to define Dredd himself as a character, a point that was considered crucial in the introductory instalment to what everyone hoped would lead to a lengthy series of sequels." (Making Of)

"Lippincott told me [weeks after I'd signed the contract] that he had been resistant to Judge Death all along. He actually knew this when he encouraged me to sign onto the project. I don't know what kind of game plan he had. He had an agenda, I think." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - The Fusion Interview, 1996)

"Lippincott says Judge Death is still a strong candidate for a Dredd sequel." (Making Of)


"So I went with Dredd, regrettably. I signed the contract on it, and they said to me immediately, "We're signing William Wisher to do the Rico story. You're gonna do the Judge Death story. We'll turn the two drafts over to Arnold, he'll take a look and decide which one he wants to do." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - The Fusion Interview, 1996)

"For Susan Nicoletti, it was Cottie Chubb "who got the project back on track. He brought screenwriter William Wisher into the process, and Bill approached the job very unemotionally. He researched Dredd... He was really the consummate professional Hollywood screenwriter, and I mean that as a high compliment." (Susan Nicoletti)

"I thought, "William Wisher, okay - he's got TERMINATOR 2 under his belt, he's a producer-writer: this is gonna be tough, I'm gonna have to pull out all the stops on this one." And I found myself locked into development hell and found out why the film had been in that position for something like 9 years! They could not agree amongst themselves, let alone with me...


At the beginning, they were saying, "We wanna make this a family entertainment," and I'm thinking, "This is JUDGE DREDD!" You're gonna see people being blown away, you're gonna see dark R-rated material..." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - The Fusion Interview, 1996)

"My "Comic Relief" was Max Normal, and he was in it for about 3 minutes." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter, alt.video.dvd, 2002)

"Some of these sticklers [involved in the process] were British writers, who had grown up with the Dredd character... [They] were so in love with him that they did not want to do anything that wasn't part of the 'canon'. 'He would never say that, he would never do that, he would never wear that.'" (Susan Nicoletti)


"I had one particular phone call with Charlie, and he basically told me, 'Look kid, buckle under or you're off the project.' And I thought, 'Well f*** it, I'm not having my name on something which is going to end up at this rate to be on a par with one of the worst films ever made.'" (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - The Fusion Interview, 1996)

"I walked off the project after having chest pains at 2:00 in the morning following yet another screaming conference call bout with the various
producers." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter, rec.music.movies, 1997)

"One of the producers (Susan Nicoletti) later took me out for dinner, admitted that she thought they'd taken the wrong approach, and that it ought to have been done my original way (Judge Death, etc.) Some small crumb of compensation, I suppose. Not much fun for the fans, though." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter, rec.music.movies, 1997)



THE WILLIAM WISHER DRAFT

"William Wisher was writing a concurrent draft to mine, which I didn't care for when I read it." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - Interview, Starlog Platinum Edition Volume 5)

"When Bill delivered his version, it was all there; it was coherent and clear and told a story and was not overtly absorbed with the artifacts. Once we had that script, it was like night and day. Suddenly, there were a lot of possibilities." (Edward Pressman, executive producer)

"Most of the key structural elements of JUDGE DREDD were introduced in William Wisher's first draft. Dredd is presented not as a thug or a brownshirt, but simply as an overly rigid idealist, thoroughly indoctrinated by a demanding training process, that began when he was all of 5 years old. The letter of the Law is the only value system he's ever been aware of.


Meanwhile, the society of Mega-City itself is at a turning point. Its merciless but even-handed justice system is being nudged toward full police-state status by an internal faction of reactionary Judges. A pair of contrasting father figures pull Joseph Dredd, and the entire city, into opposite directions: Judge Fargo, one of the original architechts of the Judge system, whose emphasis is on law and justice above all; and Judge Griffin, for whom law and order is everything.

This version had a subplot in which Griffin was trying to take power away from the people by removing their weapons... The Block War [sequence was] reflecting a theme from the comics, that a civil defense group which is trying to protect the ordinary version (the character of Hammond, who later became a reporter, was originally the leader of this group).

It brings up the whole question of how a group that upholds the legal system, while at the same time lying outside it, relates to the Judges... [Also,] a literal underground of revolutionaries [was] lurking in the service tunnels under [Mega-City One]... The way Wisher's clever plot has been worked out, the fate of the society hinges on the question of which of these mentors, and value systems, Dredd will finally support. And Dredd's choice is influenced in crucial ways by his discovery of his own origins." (Making Of)


"In the original 2000AD Rico story, [Rico] was locked up in a facility built on Titan, Saturn's largest moon... [The prison] required people to have their bodies adapted in order to survive the heavy doses of radiation that bombard the globe.

It became Aspen Prison in the William Wisher screenplay, because having people flying into outer space did nothing for the plot... Wisher put Aspen Prison on the Cursed Earth, in the devastated wasteland of North America... There were many discussions about what type of a prison it would be [in the movie]... In the end, [a later 'mining colony for convicts' rationale] was dropped and it became a prison for prison's sake.

The [Wisher] script had a riot taking place in the prison. It had a scene in Warden Millers office and Rico using Miller to get past security... The original concept for Rico's cell, therefore, was far grander than the finished product. Matthew Codd did a wonderful illustration in the early preproduction days in Los Angeles of swirling gyroscope guns trained on a lonely prisoner, highlighted by a shaft of light and trapped in a metallic sphere of firepower... (Making Of)

"I thought it'd be really cool. We've got the most dangerous man on the planet here. You've got all these cannons that are trained on him all the time and laser curtains." (Nigel Phelps, production designer)

(CONT.)

[sans saisons]

"The Aspen shuttle flies over the wasteland heading for the towering splendor of Mega-City One. The shuttle is returning the convicts, who have served their sentences, back to the community... After the shuttle lands in the docking bay, there was originally a scene where the prisoners try to escape with a big shoot-out... Then the script was rewritten and [by the end of it,] the gunfight was written out. Essentially, it became just Fergie walking out of the shuttle and entering Mega-City.

[Wishers draft depicts] Mega-City being a hemmed-in place designed to keep outsiders away... [As Dredd returns to Mega-City One, Wisher] had him impersonating a guard and trying to get through the perimeter wall. But he is recognized and there is a fight. This scene, along with the fight in the docking bay that was also axed, was intended to show the strength of the defenses along the wall...


"Wisher made Dredd a protagonist who becomes a hero when he recognizes and overcomes his tendency toward absolute belief in the Law in himself... A production memo written by Susan Nicoletti in November 1992 cheered the belated emergence of "a real movie". Only a few days later, the very same producers would begin to work on new memos to nit-pick Wisher's draft from almost every imaginable angle, and eventually a succession of new writers would trudge through the revolving door of "development"." (Making of)

"When I got to the flying motorcycle on page three, I thought 'This is a great idea, but why show all our aces so soon?" (Steve De Souza, screenwriter)


THE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

"When I read the script that Bill Wisher did, the one Ed Pressman brought to us, I thought this could be a really exciting adventure for a moviegoer... Wisher is the one who had to sort out five hundred comic books to come up with a story." (Andrew G. Vajna, executive producer)

"In 1990, Vajna formed Cinergi Productions, which has produced MEDICINE MAN, TOMBSTONE, and, most recently, DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE. Vajna is known for a quick, decisive approach in personally financing the projects he likes." (Making Of)


"When Cinergi came into it, Andy Vajna was not really familiar with Dredd, so a lot of the things we had been taking for granted [NEVER TAKE OFF THE HELMET?], he wanted us to account for. He wanted motivations, he wanted explanations. He wanted to know the rules better." (Edward Pressman)

"The Wisher draft was very dense. It didn't flow. There were lots of descriptions, and people were talking too much. It wasn't springy, you know what I mean?" (Tova Laiter, Cinergi production exec)

"So as much as I liked the script that we had, I thought we had to come up with more new things and new ideas and new sequences that you'd never seen before." (Andrew G. Vajna, executive producer)

"Once his initial questions were answered on Judge Dredd, Vajna moved swiftly to draw up a partnership deal, and to get it into preproduction almost immediately." (Making Of)


THE STAR

"Sly was the first person we thought of and the one and only person we showed the script to. He fell in love with [the Wisher draft] and we decided to look no further." (Andrew G. Vajna)

"Vajna attracts big stars to his projects... However pivotal any version of the screenplay may be, no-one who understands Hollywood would object to the statement that the performers in this elite group of superstars (and their super-agents and super-lawyers) exercise virtual life-and-death power over many movie projects." (Making Of)

"The first thing was simply whether or not or to what extent we wanted to put the comic book character himself, intact, onto the screen. Whether you wanted to, because the character had a couple of major problems. He never took off his helmet, for one thing. He literally never showed his face. Which, of course, means that if you're going to be true to the comic in this respect, you won't hire Arnold or Sly, because, trust me, you're not going to pay the fee of a star like that and then never show his face." (Cottie Chubb, Pressman production executive)

"Then they ended up paying Stallone $12 Million just to do it!" (James Crumley, screenwriter, Interview: The Crime Factory)

"I never wanted to take my helmet off - that way I wouldn't have to deal with the pussification of applying make-up everyday - the trauma of looking at life through continually baking baby blue contact lenses." (Sylvester Stallone, thespian)

"The fact of the matter is, this process, to make a film this big with this much complication for as little money as we did, required all of us to always be bouncing off of one another, both creatively and in organizational ways." (Beau Marks, producer)

"These are the kind of films where a producer needs to stand toe to toe with the star, with the director, with everybody on a daily basis, to make sure that those budgets stay within control... The buck stops here, the decision gets made here. It isn't being made behind a desk somewhere." (Andrew G. Vajna, executive producer)


"About three months after reading the script to Judge Dredd, I saw a very exciting, dynamic English crime movie called THE YOUNG AMERICANS, which was directed by a young British director called Danny Cannon." (Andrew G. Vajna)

"I was just desperately looking for a connection that I would have personally to Hollywood... I was ready to go back to England and make another low-budget film... One of the meetings I had was with Andy Vajna on DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE. I hadn't even been able to finish the script, but I said, 'You have JUDGE DREDD and just hear me out.'" (Danny Cannon, director)


THE DANNY CANNON PITCH

"First thing I said was, 'Don't make a science-fiction cop movie with a cop story plot. Emotionally, this film could be vast." (Danny Cannon, director)

"He came in and compared it to telling an epic Roman story. That the Council of Judges was like the Roman senate. The way he described it you saw all the people with togas sweeping along the marble floors. We really liked that." (Tova Laiter, Cinergi production exec)

"What I said to Andy Vajna was, 'Let's make BEN HUR again. Judge Dredd can be Ben Hur.'" (Danny Cannon, director)

"Then he met with Stallone and they got along great and from thereon, it was his movie." (Andrew G. Vajna, executive producer)


THE SECOND WILLIAM WISHER DRAFT

"What I didn't like [in the Wisher draft] were all the mutants and aliens." (Danny Cannon, director)

"Cannon... pulled Rico himself out of the realm of the monstrously mutated; his deformations were now entirely emotional and psychological." (Making Of)

"I wanted it to be more human... My Rico was a sophisticated, intelligent man, who could've been Dredd, but didn't turn out to be. Rico, you know, has the best line in the film: 'You gave up life to embrace the law; I gave up the law to embrace life'...

Rico needed a sidekick, and with Bill, I had added a character from another 2000AD series, the ABC robot... I wanted Rico to have something mechanical that he used as a friend, because that's how void of character this man is, and that's how much contempt he has for human beings." (Danny Cannon, director)


THE WALON GREEN DRAFT

"I just went about then, working with Bill Wisher at first, and then with Walon Green (THE WILD BUNCH), a brilliant writer, who always makes a certain amount of sense. But he wasn't on the picture long because he was writing a dark movie and at a certain point that became a taboo." (Danny Cannon, director)

"To make the audience identify with the ordinary character, a sequence was written in which a mother and child get pulled into a riot. But this was quickly dropped when it became very sentimental and seemed to be leading the film in the wrong direction." (Making Of)

"What I didn't want was very dark and downbeat movie, because I knew it had to appeal to kids. So, I wanted to get a much brighter, much happier, much lighter feel to it." (Andrew G. Vajna, executive producer)

"[The civil unrest and Griffin's gun-control exemplify the] sort of political point-making was lost in the translation to screen, because it was never really what the film was about... With the arrival of Stallone himself, the pressure increased to mitigate the somber antiutopian tone of Wisher's draft...

The actor had appeared in a 1993 SF action film called DEMOLITION MAN, whose young Italian director, Marco Brambilla, had been an eager candidate for the top spot on DREDD. At the time, a reconnaissance mission to the movies to check out DEMOLITION MAN and report back to the production bunker, had stirred up some anxiety.

'The similarities are vexing,' Susan Nicoletti had reported in an August 1993 memo. A couple of more eerily familiar elements, like the [underground revolutionaries], were dropped at that point... and the whole episode in Aspen Prison was scaled down." (Making Of)


THE STEVEN DE SOUZA DRAFT (March 15-17th, 1994)

"Bill [Wisher] was and is a very good writer. But we brought [Steven] de Souza in to give the whole thing a lighter touch, to clean up some of the story difficulties. He was able to step back and say, 'Let's just go for a ride.'" (Andrew G. Vajna, executive producer)

"Despite the PC reservations of some potential screenwriters and directors, producer Charles M. Lippincott... rejects the notion that Dredd is a fascist." (Making Of)

"For me, JUDGE DREDD is very much a cautionary tale. It shows us where we will end up if we keep going into the direction of Enforcement Before Prevention and Three Strikes You're Out." (Charles M. Lippincott, producer)

"The notion that, in the future, things are so grim that the police have become judge, jury and executioner all at the same time. It is a great way to do a very exciting action-filled black comedy of where we might be going in the future if we aren't more careful." (William Wisher, screenwriter)

"[Some of the screenwriters] didn't have a clue who Judge Dredd was, and went off and did the research and said, 'I hate this guy. This guy is a fascist.'" (Susan Nicoletti, associate producer)


"When the script came to me, I felt Dredd was a fascist and that the whole state was a fascist state. There were no civilians in the movie at all, apart from the anarchistic scum the cops were fighting... I think it's important for Dredd in the beginning of the movie not to be a fascist, but to be a prick. Because then, he has somewhere to go." (Steve De Souza, screenwriter)

"Some of [the screenwriters] would want the job anyway and would attempt to write a story about a character they hated. 'I'm going to stick him in the background and write a politically correct science fiction fantasy story that's a cautionary tale about excess police 'power'." (Susan Nicoletti, associate producer)

"I think anybody who reads the newspapers can see the frustration that people have with the court system... I think one of the things that most helped to lighten the movie was making the society it depicts less oppressive overall... I wrote a scene in which some cops were complaining about the news media making the police look bad, but they don't take reporters out and shoot them." (Steve De Souza, screenwriter)

"American film characters have always been more comfortable advocating common sense 'values', rather than overt political philosophies. Remember how much effort it took to persuade Humphrey Bogart even to pick sides in World War II in CASABLANCA! Judge Dredd's actions, too, needed to produce their political effects almost as an afterthought." (Making Of)

"The key was to put a trial in the movie. To have a legitimate judicial process, not some kind of star chamber, and see that there's a defense attorney, a prosecuting attorney, rules of evidence. There's a key point where the Chief Judge sides with the defense in declaring some evidence inadmissable. So we can see there are still some checks and balances left." (Steve De Souza, screenwriter)


"The only time we see [Dredd] dealing with petty crime, the normalities of everyday life for a Judge, [is when] a young upstart decides he wants to park in a space that is too small his flash, gleaming car... It's his fourth violation and Dredd judges him by blowing up his car. Steven De Souza sees this scene as important in establishing the audience's sympathies with the Dredd character." (Making Of)

"You want to keep him as an exaggerated force of nature, dealing with real problems in an over-the-top way. Shooting a person for littering, or whatever." (Cottie Chubb, Pressman production executive)

"One of Dredd's greatest comic scenes is screaming his Lawmaster down a near vertical plunge to save the citizen who leapt to his death, while yelling 'NO LITTERING!'" (Man Cave Daily)

"It's only funny because of the exaggeration. But you can't ask the action audience in this country to go to a movie and laugh at itself for being insecure enough to want to see action movies with larger than life heroes." (Cottie Chubb, Pressman production executive)

"I was careful when he was extreme. He's destroying private property. I mean, you can make all these arguments on how that's totally fascist behavior, but in the context of our little story, I think the audience forgives Dredd for that transgression against property rights." (Steve De Souza, screenwriter)

"As flames engulf what remain of the once-gleaming red car, its owner [ADDRESSED AS 'MR. DE SOUZA' IN THE FILM] stumbles around helplessly in the street, trying to come to terms with his loss... The Law may be tough, but the little creep deserved it." (Making Of)


"[In the De Souza version], when Dredd and Fergie escape the Cursed Earth, their only way back to Mega-City One is down the incinerator chute. They run down the chute with the fireball chasing them,.. [with] Dredd mounting a split-second rescue on Fergie... [In] the version that appears on the film... Dredd fires into the floor and creates an exit route, through which they both dive as the fireball rolls on above them... The Steven De Souza version was far more significant... especially after [Dredd's] harsh treatment of Fergie." (Making Of)

"The thing where Steve De Souza lost his temper the most was with... the character of Ilsa, I think as a homage to ILSA, SHE-WOLF OF THE SS, who would be a female counterpart to Rico and they could be sexy together... Ilsa, at this point, was a biker chick, and when Rico goes to see her, she's kicking some guy in the balls, and she has tattoos, and things... and then, the girls can have a fight at the end. A cat fight. Which I found just incredibly crass. But of course, once Steve had thought of that, it was clear that it was going to happen, because Andy Vajna loves Steve de Souza." (Danny Cannon, director)

"[De Souza] did a great job whipping us right through it so that we never stop to think about anything. Between [Bill Wisher and Steve de Souza], we got a really terrific script." (Andrew G. Vajna, executive producer)


THE JOHN FASANO DRAFT (June 20th, 1994)

Details unknown.


THE GARY GOLDMAN / DANNY CANNON DRAFT (July 25th, 1994; includes SHOOTING SCRIPT REVISIONS, August 2nd (Blue), August 9th (Pink), August 22nd (Yellow), August 23rd (Mauve) and October 17th, 1994)

"The final shooting script (I'm holding the final "Blue Revision" Cinergi draft, dated August 2nd 1994) is actually Danny Cannon and Gary Goldman's, despite what the WGA arbitration might have you believe. Curiously, neither appear in the credits." (Peter Briggs, screenwriter, rec.music.movies, 1997)

"For a long time, no one was sure whether the Angel Gang would make it to the film or not. Script revision after script revision had them in; then had them out; had them back in again, or had only some of them in. Danny Cannon was the person who was really keen to see Mean Machine in the movie, and so in the end the whole family (with the exception of Fink and his pet rat, Ratty) made it to the screen... They are probably the part of the film that sticks closest to the original comic strips." (Making Of)

"I tried to tell Steve [De Souza] that the best villains are the guys that almost convince you. [Rico's] that close to being brilliant. But if you create a female companion for a character like that, she has to be more or less on his level, which the original Ilsa certainly wasn't. To fit her into the story better, I made Ilsa a part of the cloning system, a member of the techie class in the city, a sophisticated woman, who could help the plot along. She's the one authentic Neo-Nazi in the plot, if you like." (Danny Cannon, director)

"While Dredd is wondering how the hell he is going to escape the Cursed Earth, pandemonium is breaking out in Mega-City One. Judges are being killed left, right and center, as demonstrated by the way the bank explodes in a shower of sparks, debris and flying bodies. This scene wasn't originally in the screenplay. It was added when Danny Cannon saw the finished building on the back lot and liked it so much, a sequence was written especially for it." (Making Of)

(CONT.)

[sans saisons]

EDITING

"A total of three editors were brought in to meet the tight schedule, which stipulated a release date six months after the end of the principal filming in England." (Making of)

"We added editors as we needed them, when we felt we were falling a little behind, and we sort of dismissed them when we caught up... It was all supervised at that particular point by Paul Hirsch, who looked over everybody's shoulder to make sure we got the right feel and the right beat in the movie, so that we wouldn't have pacing problems between reels, it would flow the same." (Andrew G. Vajna, executive producer)

"One of the people with a large stake in the film's success was actor Sylvester Stallone, who spent a considerable time sitting in on the editing process... A moment [Stallone] wanted to have in the film, while others were still arguing about as it was being edited... [was when Dredd] gets a kiss from Hershey." (Making Of)

"[Stallone] gave us some great ideas and great hints about how to improve it further... I think his creative influence was a great asset throughout the movie, throughout the process, whether it was changing or improving lines, or selecting cast, or ideas in general about the action." (Andrew G. Vajna, executive producer)

"I think that the biggest mistake I ever made was the sloppy handling of JUDGE DREDD. It could have been a fantastic, nihilistic, interesting vision of the future - judge, jury and executioner." (Sylvester Stallone, thespian)


"Calling the shots at the top of the tree, of course, was Danny Cannon... The director's cut was finished at the beginning of March 1995, at which time everyone looked at the film and decided more work needed to be done." (Making Of)

"I think when you get a director's cut, usually you get the movie full of shots that the directors are in love with, and then when you see the movie, you figure out, 'Is that shot really necessary, is it part of the storytelling or just a pretty shot?'" (Andrew G. Vajna, executive producer)

"The finished article emerged from the edit suite at the end of March... A late decision to add the three-minute flying bike sequence to the film kept the postproduction team on their toes up until the end. It was a major change that helped to create the "roller-coaster ride" executive producer Andy Vajna was after, although it added extra work to an already packed agenda." (Making Of)

"We went through the movie and made sure that everything that was in this movie had a real, definite purpose, and it moved the story along, and I think that's really where we ended up." (Andrew G. Vajna, executive producer)

"There have been many highly publicized disagreements between producers and directors over changes made to a directors cut. This wasn't the case with JUDGE DREDD, according to Andy Vajna." (Making Of)

"I think everybody's going to be happy. The kids and the grownups both! I mean, the kids are going to just explode to see this movie, because, I mean, it's gadgets galore! If they were gonna pay me to do that, I'll give it to them." (Danny Cannon, director)

"And you look at this and you're thinking, 'Christ, all these guys are trying to get in by plagiarizing everyone else's work.'" (Peter Briggs, screenwriter - The Fusion Interview, 1996)

[JOE SOAP]

It was a cluster-fuck.

[Stu101]

It was a cluster-fuck.

^^  What he said.

[sheldipez]

The worst movies often have the most interesting stories behind them, thanks for that, a good read.

[Alski]

And it looked so frakkin good from the snippets etc!

AH UHM DA LURGH!

[darnmarr]

The worst movies often have the most interesting stories behind them, thanks for that, a good read.

I found it all quite fascinating, heartbreaking too: so close and yet so far kinda thing.

[JOE SOAP]

I'd love a book documenting the story of Judge Dredd's film-development since the first options were made back in the 70's, including interviews with all those concerned, Ed Neumeier et al. and any concept art. I doubt studios would be willing to release them for publication but the appendix should contain all the draft screenplays.

[sans saisons]

http://vimeo.com/66470446

That is probably as close as we'll ever get to what the '95 should've been. Actually, the first act now resembles the original Wisher script quite a bit; the rewrites had more to do with the latter half of the film.

[Recrewt]

Yup, interesting stuff.  It's just a shame that they didn't have the balls to make a proper Dredd movie. 

I'm sure that I have commented elsewhere on here that I don't think much of the '95 film.  That said, it did show an MC1 that I was more familiar with than the latest movie.  I also think Stallone was not a bad fit for the character - there is a bit in the movie early on in the block war where the rookie gets shot and then it shows Dredd and he looks more than a bit angry and snarls one of his ammo choices.  For those few seconds, downard grimmace and helmet intact I actually bought Stallone as Dredd. 

Schwarzenegger would have been totally wrong but I always wonder how a Clint Eastwood Dead Man/Necropolis movie would have turned out.