Judge Minty: Taking Law to the Lawless

I have been a Judge Dredd fan for a long time (ie back to issue 3 of 2000AD) and was horribly disappointed by the Stallone / Hollywood treatment back in 1995. I am rather interested that there is a fan film in the making that looks to go back to the source material and beyond to the story concept itself: the police maintain the law through public consent, but if there is no consent then how do you maintain the law?


Created back in 1977 by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, the story is set in the vast and overpopulated Mega-City One, what is now the US Eastern Seaboard, hemmed in by nuclear wastelands and nearly total unemployment. With so much violent crime there is no possibility for law courts to keep up, so the police are also judge, jury, and executioner. Wagner envisioned current US inner-city of gangs, poverty, and armed police attempting to maintain control, and extrapolated to a fearful extreme.

At the moment there is a new film in progress based around a secondary character from the stories: Judge Minty. An aging Judge who is forced to 'retire' from the streets, mainly it seems because he has become too compassionate. He chooses to take 'The Long Walk' into the Cursed Earth, there "to take law to the lawless". The film will be based around his first experiences in the radioactive wastes.

Will it work? Well, you be the judge:

You can find more information and keep track of the film's progress at http://www.judgeminty.com/

For those who have forgotten the Stallone travesty, here is the trailer from that:

Hollywood is also attempting to redeem itself with a remake, or rather a re-imagining, but this time with 2000AD as a producer. There is a reasonable chance that this time it should work.

With a release date set for 2012, there is not too much information yet, just some concept art.