Who owns the rights to judge dredd

It should create up to jobs over the next few years. The Kingsleys were heavily involved in the movie Dredd, starring Karl Urban, and last year set up Rebellion Productions. The first project they announced was Mega-City One, a TV series based on the Dredd world, alongside Rogue Trooper, a fan-favourite strip from AD about a genetically engineered soldier in an endless future war.

Productions at Didcot will not be limited to the AD characters. In September, Rebellion acquired the TI Media library , giving it control of a back catalogue of British comic characters dating back to the late 19th century. Primarily known as a video game company, Rebellion is responsible for franchises such as Sniper Elite.

However, the game developer is now evolving into film and TV production. The company will transform a printing press formerly owned by the Daily Mail into a studio space meant to provide creative room in England, where the demand for studio space is high.

The studio will also be available to third parties. VFX is an area we are looking at as well. There is a whole bunch of interesting stuff, but you do need the craft skills and you need facilities… and it is hard to find them.

Jason and Chris Kingsley were also producers on the Dredd film starring Karl Urban, and their ambition is to become a content producer to rival the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. The '95 movie drew more more shrewdly on the comic's abundant history than the version.

From undead dark judges to mutated gorilla gangsters, from Soviet assassin Orlok to face-changing serial killer PJ Maybe, the comic has been stuffed with some of the most colourful, imaginative and complex villains seen in comics. What did the movie give us? A tower block full of scruffy junkies. Fortunately, the format of a TV series has the scope to really explore the breadth and depth of Mega City One's diverse denizens across multiple episodes.

The other thing the movie lacks is humour. Stallone clashed with the '95 film's director Danny Cannon over the comedy elements of the film, and it was horribly cartoonish.

But looking at the humourless model, with its effing-and-blinding and grimly lingering close-ups of exit wounds fountaining blood and bone, Sly might have had a point. Now, I enjoy a bit of the old ultraviolence as much as the next man. My life changed the moment I saw the cover of my first ever issue of "AD" , which shows Dredd holding up a severed nose.

But also on that cover is the strapline "Loser by a nose" -- and it's that combination of pitch-black humour seasoning the extreme violence that makes Judge Dredd and "AD" what it is. Joe Dredd himself may never crack a smile, but his straight man act anchors a city and a future that get ever more ludicrous.

Those are the kind of bonkers choices that made " The Fifth Element " so gloriously memorable two years later, and it's the kind of absurdity that the Dredd movie sorely lacks. Ultimately, the movie gets Dredd himself right, and Mega City One wrong.