FAQ

In the year 2139, the American judiciary system has collapsed and been replaced by "judges" who have the power to arrest, sentence and execute criminals at the scene of a crime. One such judge, Judge Joseph Dredd (Sylvester Stallone), the greatest lawkeeper in the history of Mega City 1 (a region centered at former New York City and encompassing lands of the former United States eastern seaboard) is framed for the murder of an investigative journalist and his wife. Dredd is found guilty based on his DNA being used to activate the Lawgiver gun used in the murder and he is sentenced to life in prison. Aided by colleague Judge Hershey (Diane Lane) and by Herman "Fergee" Ferguson (Rob Schneider), a cowardly computer hacker that Dredd once sentenced to prison, Dredd learns that the real killer is former Judge Rico (Armand Assante), once his best friend. Dredd sets out to find Rico and learns a secret about his own past.

Judge Joseph Dredd is a comic strip character whose series appears in the British comic 2000 AD. Dredd was created in 1977 by British writer John Wagner and Spanish artist Carlos Ezquerra and has been named the Seventh Greatest Comic Character by the British magazine Empire. The comic series was adapted for the movie by American screenwriters Michael De Luca, William Wisher Jr,. and Steven E. de Souza. The movie inspired two novelizations—Judge Dredd (1995) by American fantasy writer Neal Barrett, Jr and a children's book, Judge Dredd: The Junior Novelisation (1995), by Graham Marks—along with a DC Comics graphic novel Judge Dredd: Official Movie Adaptation (1995) by Andrew Helfer and Carlos Ezquerra.

Due to the strict policy of the British Bord of Film Classification (BBFC) regarding some fighting techniques, the UK version of this Stallone flick has been censored, at least as far as any version classified as 15 is concerned. Scenes involving headbutts were altered.

Yes. Sylvester Stallone had been interviewed a different times about the topic. He was never one too pleased with the film and his association with it. At the time that it came out, he was gladly cast in Cop Land (1997) and felt this would put some distance between him and the somewhat campy Judge Dredd film. In 2008, Stallone discussed his feelings about the movie in an issue of Uncut magazine: I loved that property when I read it, because it took a genre that I love, what you could term the "action morality film" and made it a bit more sophisticated. It had political overtones. It showed how if we don't curb the way we run our judicial system, the police may end up running our lives. It dealt with archaic governments; it dealt with cloning and all kinds of things that could happen in the future. It was also bigger than any film I've done in its physical stature and the way it was designed. All the people were dwarfed by the system and the architecture; it shows how insignificant human beings could be in the future. There's a lot of action in the movie and some great acting, too. It just wasn't balls to the wall. But I do look back on Judge Dredd as a real missed opportunity. It seemed that lots of fans had a problem with Dredd removing his helmet, because he never does in the comic books. But for me it is more about wasting such great potential there was in that idea; just think of all the opportunities there were to do interesting stuff with the Cursed Earth scenes. It didn't live up to what it could have been. It probably should have been much more comic, really humorous, and fun. What I learned out of that experience was that we shouldn't have tried to make it Hamlet; it's more Hamlet and Eggs. He later elaborated: From what I recall, the whole project was troubled from the beginning. The philosophy of the film was not set in stone - by that I mean "Is this going to be a serious drama or with comic overtones" like other science fiction films that were successful? So a lotta pieces just didn't fit smoothly. It was sort of like a feathered fish. Some of the design work on it was fantastic and the sets were incredibly real, even standing two feet away, but there was just no communication. I knew we were in for a long shoot when, for no explainable reason Danny Cannon, who's rather diminutive, jumped down from his director's chair and yelled to everyone within earshot, "FEAR me! Everyone should FEAR me!" then jumped back up to his chair as if nothing happened. The British crew was taking bets on his life expectancy.