It’s been two years almost to the day (plus or minus a week) since Dredd hit theaters – and producer Adi Shankar wants to thank all of the film’s loyal fans (and sequel hopefuls) for supporting the 2012 release.
Shankaer’s credits include the Liam Neeson vs. wolves thriller The Grey and the Mark Wahlberg-starring Lone Survivor, plus he’s got the recently-announced remake of the Korean thriller I Saw the Devil on the way from the You’re Next/The Guest team of Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard. And in this very candid video, the producer talking about his own personal journey to getting his dream project – Dredd – in theaters (and how it didn’t go exactly according to plan).
Warning: the language gets a little salty.
“2012 was the year that completely altered the paradigm of my life,” Shankar says in the video. “Years earlier, I had left my job and was facing ridicule from friends, from family.”
Shankar traces the path of trying to get several projects off the ground (and in theaters) before the very limited release of the Gerard Butler action-drama Machine Gun Preacher back in 2011, finally seeing success when Joe Carnahan’s The Grey opened at number one in 2011. But his true passion project was Dredd (you have to hear the beginning of a young Adi’s fascination with the character going all the way back to the Stallone film).
Shankar wears his fandom on his sleeve: the guy’s out there producing what he calls “bootleg movies” like the stealth Punisher short Dirty Laundry (and getting Thomas Jane to kind of sort of be Frank Castle again) as well as the Ryan Kwanten-starring Truth in Journalism, which serves as a prequel to Venom’s early appearance in the comics. So the guy’s committed.
He admits that the failure of Dredd‘s theatrical release hit him hard. And he wants to thank the fans for turning it around (Dredd became one of the biggest home video releases when it hit DVD, Blu-ray, and digital).
So… what does this all mean for a Dredd sequel? Shankar’s still keeping mum on what’s next for Mega City-One’s Finest, but Karl Urban is out there saying there’s been talk of a prequel. For us fans of the first film, there’s always hope, I guess.
Image: Lionsgate
Streaming on Netflix, if you like action movies it is worth checking it out.
If people didn’t see “DREDD” because of the trailer or the marketing then that makes sense. However, to hold the Stallone film which came out 17 SEVENTEEN YEARS! before it against it makes no sense what so ever. See this is why we can’t have good things anymore.
I was one of those guys who passed on Dredd in the theaters because all I knew of it was what I saw in the Stallone movie. (Big mistake, I know)
But after hearing several friends on Facebook talk about how amazing it was I decided to give it a shot, and ended loving it so much I got a copy on blu-ray.
One of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.