The Line? Have these people never read Judge Dredd?

Getting serious Block Wars vibes from this intended utopia.

Presenting a 170 km vertical city that can be travelled end to end in 20 minutes. Giving residents a convenient lifestyle within 5-minute walk neighborhoods, and communities organized in three dimensions, THE LINE is the future of urban living.#TheLINE #NEOM pic.twitter.com/fXntnKt42W

— NEOM (@NEOM) July 25, 2022

I’m more surprised that there’s not a franchise of 2000 AD films and series in play on streaming sites or cinema like the endless scrap Ironman, Spiderman films etc.

I’m more surprised that there’s not a franchise of 2000 AD films

Same here, but is it a very British thing that doesn’t translate well if you don’t know the characters? It’s maybe also a little more complex than your standard Marvel comic strip? Just thinking out loud…

Yes definitely Mega-city vibes

I’m more surprised that there’s not a franchise of 2000 AD films

2000ad is pretty dystopian and not very family friendly. Look at Marvel with the bright colours, no blood and few deaths. The DC universe is ‘darker’ and hasn’t done well in comparison. 2000ad is darker still

Nearest comparison is The Boys – however the source material for that was more puerile, and there’s a worrying amount of people who don’t realise it’s a satire

The one i’d love to see turned into an animation series is ‘The Out’ from recent 2000ad runs. That would be amazing

Absolutely. Decent film versions of so much classic 2000ad stuff would be ace… The Thargiverse?

More Karl Urban/Alex Garland Dredd.
Strontium Dog
Nemesis
Slaine
Zenith
Rogue Trooper
ABC Warriors (from the Bisley full on weirdness era)
Harlem Heroes

Hell , it would be super niche, but I’d even quite like a Metalzoic movie…

Is it a genuine thing or the start of some marketing for another comic-based film franchise?

Dredd didn’t make it’s budget back. I doubt there’d be any more

Strontium Dog would be just a action movie set in a dystopian future with an anti-hero

Nemesis is too weird for mainstream, but really is already filled by  Warhammer 40K and I think there’s more than enough of that

Slaine – Northman

Rouge Trooper – AFAIK there’s been 3 projects so far?

ABC warriors – Transformers

Others are too niche.

Nemesis the Warlock – very niche but could be brilliant.

Great, it’s a 21st century Kowloon.

Looks like going on a giant cruise liner. Awful.

Rouge Trooper

Do they wear lipstick too?

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/386/534/fd2.jpg

It’s not even a mega city with proper funny named blocks, more of an arcology/linear. I calls that unimaginative

Dredd didn’t make it’s budget back. I doubt there’d be any more

Such a good film too. Karl Urban was fantastic as Dredd. Wasn’t there talk of a series on one of the streaming platforms or is that just wishful thinking on my behalf?

Aye, the Karl Urban Dredd was epic – dirty, gory, explody. Proper adult carnage. Loved it.

For me 2000ad would be best suited to decent anime as they could make it really dark and nasty but without the monstrous budget of live action

This may be heresy, but I thought the Stallone version captured the comic book aesthetic better.

There was talk of a sequel, but I think the writer and director of the first one had enough of a bad time together that I think they both said no.

I think Karl Urban has said he’d be up for it though

Ha the Sly version was awful but I was working at Pinewood Studios when it was being made, cheese sandwich in Mega City One. Karl Urban one was a great film.

Aye, the Karl Urban Dredd was epic – dirty, gory, explody. Proper adult carnage. Loved it.

Obscure reference in that movie. Graffiti in the block foyer said ‘Who’s Jimmy Who’  referring to one of the one off stories from the early 90’s

– Scottish artist arrives mega city one and goes to a publishing company where he stupidly gave a sample of his work. Publisher uses their artist robots to copy and recreate Jimmy Who’s style, enraging the artist who then attacks the publisher with an axe. It was a Judge Dredd story.

Mega City One series was in development/production. Paused due to pandemic and haven’t heard anything of it since.

I think there’s a huge global market for all things 2000ad. We need something with that mix of cynicism and grit.

Is parent company ‘Rebellion’ deliberately withholding the screen rights, just to stymie artistic expression?
Is it too intrinsically pagan for their tastes?

Material like Judge Dredd always found plenty of fans in the USA, even in comic format.

If the first dredd movie bombed, it was probably due to distribution snafus.
Nowadays, with global streaming it’s far easier to reach your audience.

The last film, starring Carl Urban was great, but seemed more like a single episode within a (Netflix?) series.

That’s my two credits😉

Dredd would definitely work better as a series. You wouldn’t need to even write a script, just rip the best stories.

How about Robo Hunter? Or Halo Jones? Or Harlem Heroes? Or Invasion 1999 ( with a possible title update)?

Dredd was a “flop” because it was exclusively released as a 3d movie IIRC. And yes, waiting on Mega City One.

The Out would be a good basis for a series, Future Shocks could work too, think Black Mirror in shorter episodes.

There’s loads of material really, Rebellion do want to push it but I think they learned the lessons after the Stallone film. IIRC BHP are trying to get stuff moving as well, Killtopia would definitely work.

nickc
Full Member

Dredd didn’t make it’s budget back. I doubt there’d be any more

It more or less broke even at the box office, but it’s made a further 20 million- 50% of the budget- in domestic physical sales. So it’s done not bad

supernova
Free Member

This may be heresy, but I thought the Stallone version captured the comic book aesthetic better.

Oh, absolutely. The Urban film got the feel and Dredd pretty much right but it didn’t have the look. But hey, now they can just film in Saudi

I love how up for it Urban is. He was asked if he’d do more, he said for sure, I want to do origins. Interviewer says, isn’t an origins story a little bit clicked? He said nah, sorry, that needs a capital- I don’t want to do an origin story, I want to do Origins, the John Wagner strip from 2006, that story’s awesome. Or Democracy Now, that’d maybe be better tv. (Olivia Thrilby wants more Judge Anderson too).

It’s perfect for TV- if Apple came with their bottomless pockets or Amazon with their general Big Dick Energy and lack of fear… But it seems to be permanently at the “almost exists, doesn’t quite” step. The new toys were supposed to be a tie-in but that’s gone away too which isn’t a good sign…

(I guess the Rogue Trooper series died quietly? I upset some people by saying it should be Friday, but you knows I’m right. PS, if you’re a GI and your name is something like Oliver Gunbloke, might as well just kill yourself today and get uploaded into a chip)

PS, if you’re a GI and your name is something like Oliver Gunbloke, might as well just kill yourself today and get uploaded into a chip)

Proper laughed at that. So true

Rebellion have some TV work in the pipeline don’t they?

Maybe not https://rebellion.com/films/

Urban Dredd was a brilliant movie version. It would be super to see Urban & Thirlby in another MC1 movie.

I would love to see a Halo Jones anime/live action. But perhaps that’s too old now?

Sláine would be an AMAZING thing to do. Game of Thrones ultra!

However, IRL The Out could be the very best to get done. New, weird, starts regular and goes bonkers. Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy but modern day.

Never actually read any Rogue Trooper I’m embarrassed to admit though I did thoroughly enjoy Jaegir.

I could see Brink providing a sci-fi counterpoint to The Out, who doesn’t love a slow burner murder mystery conspiracy in space?

Full Tilt Boogie would work as an anime series as well.

Long and short is they have absolutely tons of stuff that, with the right people, could be absolutely huge.

More Karl Urban/Alex Garland Dredd.
Strontium Dog
Nemesis
Slaine
Zenith
Rogue Trooper
ABC Warriors (from the Bisley full on weirdness era)
Harlem Heroes

I’d put a film based on the V.C’s at the top of that list, loved that…
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Oh, absolutely. The Urban film got the feel and Dredd pretty much right but it didn’t have the look.

Isn’t the problem that the feel and look of Dredd changed over time? The really early stuff, which I read when it first came out as an 8 year old, feels very different from some of the later stuff that I’ve read more recently. America, for instance, wouldn’t have made great reading for the 8 year old me, but I think it is one of the best bits of SF I’ve ever encountered as an adult.

(A couple of years ago, maybe on a thread on here, I saw a picture of the 1st issue, with the free toy. I can still remember my aunt, who worked in a newsagent distributors, giving me that issue and how different and irreverent it was!)

I was an avid reader as a kid and my favourite story at that time was Ro-Busters which originally appeared in Starlord and survived the merger with 2000AD.

Not sure how the stories would stack up now as have not read them for many years but they certainly caught my imagination at the time. Could be a great animated series and Ro-Jaws has definite star potential.

No mention of Button Man. Surely an easy film to make, and great Politiking as well as built in action..

I could see Brink providing a sci-fi counterpoint to The Out, who doesn’t love a slow burner murder mystery conspiracy in space?

Was just about to suggest Brink, it’s a fantastic story with great aesthetics.

I mean, I was actually hoping for a discussion about The Line itself and the Hell on Earth it seems to want to unleash on its inhabitants if it ever actually gets built…

But all too happy to talk about 2000ad instead!

I’m going to mention Zenith again – would be another nice spin on the superhero genre. A bit The Boys I guess in some ways, but with a whole other freaky psychedelic thing going on alongside. Might make a better series than a movie with 4 feature length episodes – one for each book. Shame with hero parodies and multiversal shenanigans it would actually look a bit derivative now rather than the pretty groundbreaking thing it was.

(speaking of unfilmed superhero things and not 2000ad, I’d also quite like to see New Statesmen from Crisis adapted)

I mean, I was actually hoping for a discussion about The Line itself and the Hell on Earth it seems to want to unleash on its inhabitants if it ever actually gets built…

Lmao, I did notice we had gone incredibly off piste but since nobody seems to object…

 but is it a very British thing

Well – the idea of linear cities is a very British thing – Will Alsop was proposing the exact thing  back in 2005

Learning from Will Alsop

His basic premise was to take the journey time from one side of Greater London, through London,  to the other and look at linear strips of of similar size populations that are connected by the same journey time – and make them the basis for a linear super-city. So Liverpool to Hull along the M62 has all thing fundamental things that London has and takes about the same time to traverse – everything is there in terms housing, commerce, industry, rail and air, sea ports – and its also a bigger population with 12 million living within quick reach of the M62 compared to 8 million in London. But they have access to multiple ‘centres’ and all sorts of highly developed infrastuction but and they also have quick and ready access to unspoilt landscape.

So his proposal is / was that you hold developing close to that motorway corrodor so that cites and towns along that route don’t expand outwards into the the countryside but thead along the line of the motorway and rail links towards each other and that you bar development outside of that line – that way you can live in the ‘city’ and in most instance could just walk to the countryside.

It took me a while to realise that the trailer for the Line isn’t açtually a sci if movie but a real project in Saudi!

My fav 2000AD series was the ABC warriors.

Ok, so this is a real proposal for developing something for humans to live. It’ll never stay that clean for long!

I hadn’t realised that there was a Megaprojects about this: