It’s been a little while since we’ve seen anything new from the upcoming Dredd, having got our first official look at Karl Urban in the titular role last summer, followed by some great images a few days later of Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey, and more of Urban in action.

But with film due out later this year, we’ve now got four excellent new images to share with you, via 2000 AD and ComingSoon.net, giving us a few more looks at Thirlby and Urban opposite each other.

Dredd will be directed by Pete Travis (Vantage Point) and written by Alex Garland (28 Days Later), and will star Urban (JJ Abrams’ Star Trek) in the eponymous role, Thirlby (Juno) as the rookie Judge Anderson, and Lena Headey (300) as the villain, Madeline Madrigal. The plot is currently being kept under wraps, and the few details we have so far look a little something like this:

“DREDD takes us to the wild streets of Mega City One, the lone oasis of quasi-civilization on Cursed Earth. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is the most feared of elite Street Judges, with the power to enforce the law, sentence offenders and execute them on the spot – if necessary. The endlessly inventive mind of writer Alex Garland and the frenetic vision of director Peter Travis bring DREDD to life as a futuristic neo-noir action film that returns the celebrated character to the dark, visceral incarnation from John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s revered comic strip.”

Fans of the 2000 AD comics will no doubt be happy to know that this new adaptation is completely unrelated to the 1995 film, Judge Dredd, which wasn’t quite so well received. On this adaptation, they went to creator Wagner himself to discuss the film and what it should be, which certainly sounds like a good sign.

And these new images would definitely cement that, bringing us even more awesomeness. I’m a really big fan of Thirlby’s work, and am glad she’s getting the chance to take on bigger roles like this.

Dredd is set to be released in 3D on 21st September over in the States, and though there’s no word yet on a UK release, let’s hope that we’ll be getting it around the same time. Still quite a few months to go before it comes, but the pictures so far are giving us plenty to look forward to. Here’s to hoping that we’ll be treated to the first trailer before long. For now, enjoy these great new shots of Thirlby and Urban, and as usual, you can click to enlarge. Very much looking forward to that first brain-exploding shot.

Worrying news from the LA Times today as they have a report that Pete Travis has been asked to leave the movie Dredd, following creative differences as the film enters the edit stage.

The Times claim that writer and producer on the film Alex Garland is leading the project in the absence of its director with reshoots possible before the scheduled release in September of next year.

What this means for the film is unclear but two, fairly dismal, options present themselves. The first is that the producers were so unhappy with the way the film was shot that they showed the director the door and scrambled to salvage the film in the edit or that Garland was such a strong presence in the first place in his dual role that Travis was unable to make the film in his image therefore walking as the struggle continued.

Either way this is disappointing news for fans of the character who were served up a howler* sixteen years ago with Sly Stallone removing his Judge’s helmet which acted as a metaphorical opening of a Pandora’s Box of Rubbish.

The casting of Karl Urban in the lead role was seen a positive move and generally welcomed, Alex Garland’s work with Danny Boyle on The Beach, 28 Days Later and Sunshine as well as his celebrated adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go for director Mark Romanek gave his involvment in the project an instant air of expectation. However he hasn’t directed a film before and if, as the Times asserts, he applies for a Co-director credit on the film there is no telling how the film will end up.

We’ll wait for an official announcement to confim the Times’ article and cross our fingers that this one will make it to the big screen intact. If only Duncan Jones had said yes…

*the word ‘howler’ is English for ‘really, really terrible’.

Our first official look at Karl Urban as Judge Dredd in the anticipated comic book movie, Dredd, came last week, and now Empire’s latest issue sports the man himself on the cover as one of the heroes of 2012.

Collider have a set of scanned images taken from inside the issue, which comes out on Thursday this week, and we get our first look at the brilliant Olivia Thirlby starring opposite Urban as Judge Cassandra Anderson.

Dredd will be directed by Pete Travis (Vantage Point) and written by Alex Garland (28 Days Later), and will star Urban (JJ Abrams’ Star Trek) in the eponymous role, Thirlby (Juno) as the rookie Judge Anderson, and Lena Headey (300) as the villain, Madeline Madrigal. The plot is currently being kept under wraps, and the few details we have so far look a little something like this:

DREDD takes us to the wild streets of Mega City One, the lone oasis of quasi-civilization on Cursed Earth. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is the most feared of elite Street Judges, with the power to enforce the law, sentence offenders and execute them on the spot – if necessary. The endlessly inventive mind of writer Alex Garland and the frenetic vision of director Peter Travis bring DREDD to life as a futuristic neo-noir action film that returns the celebrated character to the dark, visceral incarnation from John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s revered comic strip.

What’s nice to see is one of the quotes on one of the images by Andrew Macdonald (28 Days Later), who’s producing Dredd, that reads,

The first thing we did was go see John Wagner and talk with him about how the film should be.

Getting Wagner, the creator of the Judge Dredd comics, on board and working with him to develop the film sounds like exactly the right thing to do. As far as I know, Wagner didn’t consult on the 1995 Judge Dredd film, with Sylvester Stallone in the lead, and that film wasn’t received very well by the fans. But now, with Wagner working with Travis and his cast and crew, it definitely sounds like Dredd is going to be one 2012 comic book movie to look out for. And that’s really saying something, given that we have The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Avengers to look forward to next year as well.

These new images show us Thirlby’s rookie Judge for the first time, and she looks like she’s playing the part pretty well. You wouldn’t be quite as afraid of her pointing a gun at you than Dredd just staring you down, but she may well gain more confidence through the course of the movie. We also get our first look at Headey as the villain, also known as Ma-Ma, and she’s sporting some short and spiky hair with what looks to be a pretty menacing scar beneath her right eye. Not someone whose bad side you want to be on. And of course, we get some more great images of Urban as Dredd, kicking down doors, running from explosions, and just generally looking awesome.

We’ve got to wait until September next year to see Dredd, which we’ll be getting in 3D, but it really looks and sounds like it will be worth the wait. Without further ado, here are all the new images, followed by the limited edition, subscribers-only cover of Empire’s next issue and the general cover on the shelves. As usual, click to enlarge.

]]> http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/07/26/new-images-from-dredd-show-first-look-at-olivia-thirlby-as-judge-anderson/feed/ 1 http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/07/18/first-official-image-of-karl-urban-in-dredd/ http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2011/07/18/first-official-image-of-karl-urban-in-dredd/#comments Mon, 18 Jul 2011 18:00:09 +0000 Kenji Lloyd http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/?p=97756

We got our first look at Karl Urban as the well known comic book character Judge Dredd last November, and now Bleeding Cool have the first official image released for the upcoming film, titled simply Dredd, coming out on 1^st December this year.

Just taking a look at the picture, you can tell Judge Dredd is not someone you want to be on the opposite side of the law from, and it gives us a feel for the darkness we can expect in Dredd.

Urban, best known for his roles as Bones in JJ Abrams’ Star Trek and Eomer in the second and third The Lord of the Rings films, is a great actor who can bring a brilliant level of intensity to his roles, which is exactly the kind of thing Judge Dredd’s going to need. Reading the film’s synopsis and seeing this first official image of Urban as Dredd is definitely getting me excited for that December release date:

“DREDD takes us to the wild streets of Mega City One, the lone oasis of quasi-civilization on Cursed Earth. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is the most feared of elite Street Judges, with the power to enforce the law, sentence offenders and execute them on the spot – if necessary. The endlessly inventive mind of writer Alex Garland and the frenetic vision of director Peter Travis bring DREDD to life as a futuristic neo-noir action film that returns the celebrated character to the dark, visceral incarnation from John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s revered comic strip.”

As a character from the British comic anthology, 2000 AD, it’s nice to see that both writer and director for this remake are British too. Pete Travis’ main experience as a director has been for British TV, and he made his feature debut with Vantage Point back in 2008, which went to number one at the US box office and took $150m. worldwide. Dredd is set to be a really different style to what Travis has worked on before, so it will be interesting to see him take on the challenge.

Writer Alex Garland is well known for the horror film, 28 Days Later, and more recently wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, Never Let Me Go; clearly a writer of many talents. His impressive work writing 28 Days Later and executive producing the sequel, 28 Weeks Later, definitely suggest he’s the perfect man for the job to bring Dredd to life as both writer and producer on the project.

Starring alongside Urban will be Olivia Thirlby and Lena Headey. Thirlby is best known for playing Ellen Page’s best friend in Juno, and she also starred opposite Josh Peck and Sir Ben Kingsley in one of my favourite indie films, The Wackness, in which she was absolutely brilliant, so I’m really looking forward to seeing her in this. Headey is most recognisable for starring as Gerard Butler’s wife, Queen Gorgo, in Zack Snyder’s 300, as well as starring in TV series Game of Thrones this year as Cersei Lannister and as Sarah Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Having a recognisable, but perhaps lesser known, cast has allowed the budget to be kept down to $45m., which I think means we can look forward to having an epic vision of Mega City One without being an enormous and risky budget for the studio, countering films like this year’s Green Lantern. As one of a few English-created comic book characters popular on both sides of the Atlantic as well as elsewhere across the globe, hopefully Dredd will have a fan-base already in place waiting to receive this film well, and all signs so far look to me as though it will do and be much better than 1995 film with Sylvester Stallone in the titular role. Without further ado, here is the great new image of Judge Dredd. As usual, click to enlarge.

Well, let’s immediately stop you – this may very well turn out to be a fan made creation. There’s nothing official from Lionsgate to confirm or deny if this is the first look at the teaser poster for Dredd, the Pete Travis directed big screen adaptation of the 2000 AD anti-hero, but for my money it looks pretty spot on. Not official mind you, but it’s a decent poster either way.

If you were going to tease the Karl Urban Dredd movie then using perhaps one of the most iconic images from the source material is a good start, though the blood splashes are a little out of place and really put me in mind of Watchmen initially – which is strange as the tagline ‘Justice is Coming’ was used for the iPhone game for the Watchmen movie.

Anyhoo – this is meant to be an ‘advance’ poster to whip up interest, and who are we to argue until there’s word from the studio.

Here’s the poster – click to judge for yourselves.

This came to us 2000AD.Wordpress via Bleeding Cool

Seems to be first look Friday today as we’ve already seen Ian McShane as Blackbeard in the next Pirates of the Caribbean film, then we saw the first clear look at Marc Webb’s rebooted Spider-Man and now we’ve got a picture of one of Mega-City One’s finest in full uniform, on a lawmaster.

Pete Travis is directing Karl Urban, Lena Headey and Olivia Thirlby in Dredd, and we’ve seen a few shots from the set already, as well as a nice image of Urban as the man himself, and this new picture is ripe and ready to be poured over by Dreddnaughts*.

Quite right for 2000AD (via io9) to get the first full look at the Judge’s uniform and lawmaster bike, looks the right side of eroded futurism, without the unnecessary retro pandering – good to see, and yes, I have no idea what that means – just sounds right.

Now, trailer please…

*no idea if that’s the official collective term, please feel free to enlighten me if you know I’m wrong.

Shooting is well underway in South Africa for the new (and hopefully improved!) adaptation of famed 2000AD comic creation Judge Dredd, and it looks like another cast member has been added.

Info gleaned from a site called Judge Dredd Movie News reveals that, although no official announcements have been made, British actress Lena Headey has been cast as the film’s main villain, Madeline Madrigal (AKA Ma-Ma), and has even begun work on the film.

Best known for her roles in the short-lived TV spin-off Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and as Gerard Butler’s missus in 300, Headey is playing a character who is new to the Dredd universe and has been created especially for this second screen incarnation of the Mega City One copper.

The film is directed by Pete Travis (from a script by Alex Garland), and Star Trek’s Karl Urban stars as the titular lawman.

We are gradually getting a few snapshots from the new version of Judge Dredd, with Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings, Doom, The Bourne Supremacy, Red) as Dredd and Pete Travis (Vantage Point, Endgame) on direction duties. It’s not been too easy so far to see exactly what the look of the film is going to be, with these shots of Mega City One clearly awaiting a bit of CGI/matte-work augmentation and these shots of vehicles seeming a little unlike the finished article.

We have already been shown what Urban is going to look like in his Dredd get-up, although the image was a little fuzzy. Now we have something a good deal clearer from Edmund Woodward, who is working on the film, showing not only what Dredd’s helmet should look like, but also some of the preliminary sculpting work.

Have a good look at these snaps of Dredd’s bashed and scraped helmet, as well as the prelim’s and then let us know below how you feel about the prospects for the film.

Thanks to Bleeding Cool for sharing this with the world.

IMAGES REMOVED DUE TO COPYRIGHT STUFF…Which is a shame as they were great.

Some more pictures from the new version of Judge Dredd have cropped up online, courtesy of Bleeding Cool.

Amongst the bunch of images here are some of the vehicles which will populate the streets of Mega City One, including a number of police cars and wagons.

The cars themselves appear to resemble a more modern design than those found in the pages of 2000AD, or even the 1995 Stallone film for that matter! Maybe the budget doesn’t stretch to accommodate that type of bulky, industrial-style look, but it seems a shame if the cars here will be prevalent throughout.

Let’s hope the Lawmaster motorbikes used by street judges are of a standard which are familiar to fans of Dredd’s world.

I am a little unsure what to make of or say about these. Bleeding Cool have scooped some on-location snaps of various entrances to and sections of Mega City One, the centre of the action for the upcoming big screen adaptation of Judge Dredd, starring Karl Urban.

The problem is, it looks a bit, well, unspectacular. Obviously it would be premature to be too harsh on the look of these snaps, given what a little bit of post-production CGI-augmentation can achieve these days, but still….

We have a loading dock, some graffiti, the South Entrance to Mega City One and some straightforward regulations to be adhered to by all citizens on pain of, I guess, judgement.

I think I need to try to not get too bent out of shape over how tacky this looks. After all, the first online trailer for Avatar looked pretty badly rendered and in the end we were presented with one of the most visually impressive and immersive films in recent memory.

Enjoy the pics below. As always, more as we get it.

]]> http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/11/26/on-set-shots-of-mega-city-one-from-judge-dredd-sort-of/feed/ 0 http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/11/19/first-look-at-karl-urban-as-judge-dredd/ http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/2010/11/19/first-look-at-karl-urban-as-judge-dredd/#comments Fri, 19 Nov 2010 21:00:29 +0000 Jon Lyus http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/?p=56907

Here’s the first image from the new Judge Dredd movie, titled simply Dredd, and our first look at the Karl Urban chin.

Taken from a rehersal and found on 2000ADonline by our friends at Bleeding Cool the size of Urban’s helmet is the subject of much discussion on the various forums and comment boards across the internet but to my mind (and bearing in mind this is still subject to change) this image looks pretty great and is perfect to get the Dredd hype train moving.

Here’s your pic.

Here’s the whole Dreddful history.

Bloody Disgusting have posted both a trailer and poster for missing backpacker thriller And Soon the Darkness, a remake of a British film from the 70’s of the same name

The film stars Amber Heard (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) and Odette Yustman (Cloverfield) as two American girls on a bike-riding trip in a remote part of the Argentina. When one of them goes missing, the other must find her before darkness falls and all hope is lost The new Judge Dredd and Dr. McCoy, Karl Urban, co-stars as a helpful stranger who may, or may not, be as sympathetic he first appears.

The films open on December 17 in the US, and 11 February 2011 in the UK. The trailer is embedded below the poster.

Well folks we have finally been treated to some new news on the upcoming Judge Dredd film.  In an attempt to bring back the bad ass Judge from the dead, the powers that be have decided to shorten the name from Judge Dredd to the more powerful sounding DREDD

This sci-fi action flick stars Karl Urban in the title role, Olivia Thirlby as Cassandra and Pete Travis in the director’s chair.

IM GLOBAL, one of the producers of the film, has provided a synopsis for the adaptation of the famous British comic series:

Olivia Thirlby (Juno, The Wackness) has been cast as Cassandra Anderson in DNA Films’ 3D adaptation of Judge Dredd, Empire have confirmed.

Thirlby will join Karl Urban (Red, Star Trek), who was announced as the futuristic lawman Judge Dredd at San Diego’s Comic-Con event earlier this year.

Pete Travis (Vantage Point, Omagh) will direct from a script by Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Never Let Me Go).

Judge Dredd, which has been called a “very hard, R-rated, gritty, realistic movie”, will be a co-production between DNA Films, Reliance Big Entertainment and IM Global and be shot on a $45M budget.

Following the scoop from Bleeding Cool last month, Empire brings news from Movie-Con this evening that New Zealander Karl Urban has definitely been confirmed as Judge Dredd in the upcoming rebooted.

This is great news for fans of the infamous Mega-City One lawman. Urban is a fine character actor, and thanks to his winning turn as McCoy in last year’s Star Trek, I’m confident that he can do justice (no pun intended) to the role.

The makers have also confirmed that Dredd’s helmet won’t be removed (one of the many painful concessions in the Stallone version) and that long time Dredd scribe John Wagner has had a hand in every aspect of the development. It’s being shot in Johannesburg and the makers have (wisely) brought onboard crew members who worked on last year’s South African-set sci-fi, District 9.

This is the film I’ve been waiting for every since picking up a copy of the 2000AD Summer Special on my holiday in Gt Yarmouth way back in 1987!

One of my regular stops on the internet is the wonderful ManMadeMovies, which is the best place to go for all those Lunartics who were caught up in the orbit of Duncan Jones after the release of his sublime Moon.

Now with his recent BAFTA in his pocket Duncan Jones is onto bigger things, namely Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal and Vera Farmiga and ManMadeMovies had the chance to talk with Jones to discuss his past, present and future.

It’s a great interview and I’m sure that if you follow Jones on Twitter you’ll know that he is a very generous guy, keen to embrace the internet and in the candid interview he gives updates on Source Code and tells the story of his dalliance with the new Judge Dredd movie,

I would have loved to do the Judge Dredd movie that is underway. I was in fact sent the script to look at. Its a great script, and I hope I will not rue the decision of passing on it.

Thing was, I had such a strong idea of what I wanted to do with a Dredd movie, I could not bring myself to take it on and not do it my way! … and its not like I could do it as a sequel either; my Dredd would have been really weird, and dark and funny, but not your traditional introduction to a hero character. I dont even know if I could have made my version of the film pitch-able. It was maybe too off the wall.

Man – that would have been something to see…

Head on over to ManMadeMovies (and follow him on Twitter here) for the full interview – it’s well worth your time.

BleedingCool are reporting that Karl Urban, who excellently portrayed McCoy in JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot,  is about to be offered the role of Judge Dredd in the upcoming, multi-million dollar, film adaptation. This rumour follows the news that British director Pete Travis has signed to direct from a script by Alex Garland.

The film is likely to explore the character of Judge Dredd, who, in the comic-books, is a law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner.

Reliance Big Entertainment and DNA Films will co-produce the Judge Dredd film. An official announcement regarding production, and casting, could be made during Comic-Con.

I’m open to a modern-day Judge Dredd film, and Urban sounds as if he could fit into the role perfectly. Alex Garland has been responsible for writing scripts for Sunshine and 28 Days Later, so is likely to do the adaptation justice.

How do you feel about Urban becoming the always-helmeted Judge Dredd?

There were numerous mistakes made in the 1995 Judge Dredd film, not least taking Sylvester Stallone’s lawman out of his iconic uniform early on in the film, but also ditching the decaying political undertones of the original concept, in effect neutering the movie and resigning it to lay strewn in amongst the hundreds of other Blade Runner-lite action films.

News of another Dredd movie has been doing the rounds for a while, and fans are hoping for a return to the characters roots. That hope may be realised as today Deadline announce that Reliance Big Entertainment have stepped up with Andrew MacDonald’s DNA Films to develop Dredd’s next big screen outing.

DNA, who were behind the 28 Days Later and Sunshine films are looking to the scribe of those films, Alex Garland, to write this new film, which is expected to be closer to the vision of John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s 2000AD classic antihero. The British director Pete Travis is set to direct, his previous works include Vantage Point, Endgame and the Channel 4 TV film Omagh.

It was expected that Travis wold be setting up the modern day reworking of Macbeth, Come Like Shadows with Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton, but the 3D Dredd (yes, of course it’ll be in 3D) will be Travis’s next project.

It’s an exhilarating prospect to think of a new Dredd movie, the world is rich in social commentary and humour black as night, and we need a team behind it that won’t seek to satisfy only the male teenage audience – hopefully now, we have that team.

British comics have not been well served in their Hollywood adaptations. Transatlantic transitions from page to screen result in either being too faithful, as Zack Synder’s Watchmen arguably was, or too loose with the essence of the source material, resulting in a genre bound snooze fest – Judge Dredd please stand up (and don’t remove your helmet!).

While the golden age of American comics have lit up the screen in this last decade, with visionary directors taking the basic elements of  these iconic characters to their own conclusions, British comics have not garnered such attention. Nolan’s Batman, Raimi’s Spiderman and the Supermen of Donner and Singer have their own unique identity; the depth of the mythology of these superheroes allows numerous interpretations, and some of the most interesting re-imaginings of our own myths and legends have occurred on the screen as well as on the page.

It is arguable that only Dan Dare and  Mega City One’s lawman Judge Dredd have the same global recognition as their transatlantic cousins, and while the Pilot of the Future has been relaunched and rejuvenated the oft promised movie has yet to surface and the mid 90s Dredd movie was a disappointment in the box office and the realm of the fans (Helmet! Come on!)

I do not claim to be an expert on UK comics, nor am I entirely serious in my list below, but hopefully this will allow the often overlooked UK comics industry to shoulder up to its US counterpart. After all, it’s Sunday and we can allow a little dalliance with the fantastic, can’t we?

So, here are my top 5 UK comic strip movies I’d like to see.

Dennis the Meance

I’d love to have seen the much missed Charlotte Coleman take on Minnie the Minx (Dennis’s partner in menace from The Beano), and I shall ignore the US version of Dennis the Menace (although it is hard to disagree with the perfect casting of Walter Matthau at his most grumpy, self parodic self), and instead hope for a scheming dynamo of mischief and menace from the kid who made red and black striped jumpers a symbol of fear long before Freddy first sharpened his clawfingers.

Dennis and his rabid and faithful hound Gnasher have long been favourites in the D.C. Thompson & Co. stable, and since they replaced the oddity of Biffo the Bear in 1951 the covers of The Beano have portrayed one moment of menace or another, and kids every where took Dennis to their hearts. It’s an incredibly simple premise.

If you could have behaved as you wanted to when you were a kid – you would have been Dennis. His unruly attitude and penchant for the more devious elements of bad behaviour made him an iconic figure in 70s and 80s Britain, and if you heard the satisfying slap of The Beano on the carpet in your hall every Saturday morning the chances are you loved him most of all.

Not only is the nostalgia factor a prime selling point here but as the UK comics industry has the benefit and curse of being a prime source of well known ‘properties’ to market we are facing a time when the it needs to branch out to survive.

I can’t imagine getting Duncan Jones to ‘Do a Dark Knight’ with Dennis, but keep it catapults, bullied softies and Gnasher biting people and you’ve got a hit.

The Bash Street Kids

I love Alan Bennett’s work and I have great respect for the man, but I feel he missed a trick when he came to pen his story of a group of school boys looking to gain University entrance in their last year. The History Boys could so easily have been The Bash Street Kids, all that was required with a hauling out of the subtle character play and unrequited, confused sexual longings and throw in a few more custard pies and Carry On humour and the mortar boards and canes would have been flying with the chalk dust of one of the most beloved comic strips from The Beano.

Ok, so maybe the world can live with both films, but I’d love to see a big screen outing for Plug, Fatty, Smiffy and co as they take their suffering Teacher (played by Hugh Grant) to task with stink bombs on the chair, school outings to the zoo resulting in a herd of escaping wild animals, and of course the celebrated playground scraps – it’s a British institution.

And while all of the Beano characters suffered from the modernisation of the late 80s and 90s that saw tracksuits, sunglasses and skateboards infiltrate the strips, let this be a throwback to the Son of Rambow days – when PC was a muffin shaped local bobby and cellphones were tin cans with a piece of string connecting them. This is not the updated OMG of St. Trinians, let the kids have bangers and mash fights and set fire to the teacher’s moustache. I’d pay to go and see it.

Roy of the Rovers
While Football has never translated with great success to the big screen it is the dramatic narratives of the game, and the players  on and off the pitch that often makes a memorable film.

Sean Bean’s When Saturday Comes and Bend It Like Beckham have their dramatic roots in the hope and euphoria of a young player getting their chance at (as Goal 2′s subtitle has it) Living the Dream, or the beautiful game is used as a backdrop to greater dramas – Escape to Victory (if you can buy Sly as a goalie) is a fantastic film, Green Street paints a depressing and vicious look at the hooligan culture forever orbiting the football fields, and the recent Damned United had a powerhouse of a character to base itself around in Michael Sheen’s Brian Clough.

Drama is inherent in football, as it is in most competitive sports. What makes a Roy of the Rovers movie less likely is the fact that Roy Race is so good, and his team Melchester Rovers are so competent on the field that only a long storyline (such as would be allowed in a week-by-week serial) could bring out the necessary twists and turns. A two hour movie would have to etablish so much in such a short time before taking us on the emotional journey.

Plus – Roy Race is a good guy. Scandal hit the comic strip in the late 70s and early 80s when soap opera inspired plotlines led to Race’s faithful puppy of a wife, Penny, leaving him (she came back – it was fine) or the more notorious Who Shot Roy Race (with its black edged cover) saga. Until he lost his foot in a helicopter crash in the 90s Roy Race could do no wrong, and that makes for a dull film.

Personally I’d like to see an all-star team from the comic strips accompanying the tales of Roy Race. I’d pay to see Ray Winstone as Johnny Dexter, John Goodman as Hot-shot Hamish and Ronnie Corbett as Mighty Mouse. There’s more than enough soap suds and sunset beach about Roy of the Rovers and maybe that’s the angle that would work?

Dan Dare

Seeminlgy an obvious choice for a Sky Captain ascension to the silver screen is the square jaw of Dan Dare his galaxy crossing fight with the Mekon. Part Space Biggles, Part Captain UK, Dan Dare has everything you could need from a hero – looks, cunning, bravery, an enemy with a forehead the size of a bullock.

He has survived reinvention and enjoyed his renaissance in the 1980s and now in the 21st century, with Garth Ennis’s Dan Dare for Virgin comics and it is this version that is most likely to find a home on the big screen. Morally upright and with a fist that could take down a Treen army faster than you can say Ace Rimmer, Dare’s currency lies in taking the absolute division of good and evil and the range of evil schemes the Mekon undertakes to destroy Dare and the Earth.

With the thoroughly British attitude and its relatively uncomplicated characters I’m pretty sure we’ll see a Dan Dare film coming our way sooner rather than later.

Doomlord
Bit of a curio this one, it may have passed many people by, but for those who cared to look past the revitalised Dan Dare on the front cover of the relaunced Eagle comic in 1982, Doomlord was a comic strip dificult to forget.

Created by 2000AD luminaries Alan Grant and Judge Dredd creator John Wagner, Doomlord told the story of an alien race (the suitable ominous Doomlords of Nox) sending one of their charges to Earth, tasked with judging Mankind’s right to exist. Capable of draining the personalities and memories of their victims and then shape-shifting into them, Doomlord was able to walk the Earth as one of us, involving himself in society as a businessman, politician and scientist to gather his evidence. Several humans suspected his plans and tried, often in vain, to stop Doomlord’s work and usually ended up on the disintegration end of his energiser ring. The strip, in photonovel style, was unrelentingly bleak and the Doomlords themselves were nasty enough to spawn more than a few nightmares in innocent minds.

As a movie it’s underplayed slow burn of stealth and intrigue would more than likely be replaced with a V-like conspiracy narrative, emulating a They Live device of having a host of Doomlords walking the Earth, and, as it turned out in the comic strip, one of the Doomlords would fail to carry out the execution of mankind and champion the human race. There was a dallinace with an environmental message towards the end of the series which could work in its favour.

But I’d pay to see a shapeshifting, morally ambigious Doomlord disintegrating suspcious and nasty characters, while musing on the fate of the world. Think Hannibal Lecter as a T-1000 in 80s Midlands and you’ve got a winner on your hands.

So, that’s my take on British comics on the big screen, let me know yours.