The last time we heard anything about "Dredd" it was about the supposed scuttlebutt between director Pete Travis and writer Alex Garland, who were apparently feuding, with the latter said to be angling to nab a director's credit on the movie, while the former was apparently kicked out of the editing bay. A few days later, assurances were profferred that everything is fine, but little had been heard of since, but with the movie gearing up to hit theaters this fall, it looks like the marketing campaign is beginning to roll out.
Hero Complex sat down with "Game Of Thrones" star Lena Headey to talk about the movie and unveil the surprising first look at her character in the film. To bring you back up to speed, the version is said to be a hard R, 3D take on the comic character that is much more in line with the source material than the Sylvester Stallone version from the '90s. Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby (the latter as a trainee with psychic powers) team up to take on Ma-Ma (Headey), the matriarch of a drug gang that deals a reality-altering narcotic known as SLO-MO, and who presides despotically over an enormous apartment block called Peach Trees, in which most of the action is set. The tone is said to be gritty and dark, and certainly Headey backs up that up.
“The world [in the film] feels really British, and I don’t know if that’s because it’s so dirty and dark,” Headey said. “And it’s…violent. Just in terms of gunplay, they’re not afraid to show blood and gunshot wounds. And it’s set up in this concrete sort of shanty town — it’s shanty but they’re blocks — concrete favelas.” Though originally conceived as a 70 year-old woman, Headey won over Travis with her approach to the character. “She’s a prostitute who then kills her pimp and takes over his drug-running business. And Ma-Ma is a bit of a man-hater," she said.
It's intriguing to say the least, but the movie has been in production for a while now so we're eager to see if it will live up to expectations. "Dredd" will hit theaters on September 21st. Headey above plus some more images below via Kinopoisk, including better versions of pics that first appeared in EW last summer.
