Karl Urban is everywhere these days—like that one guy at every party who somehow knows everyone and everything. From The Boys’ gruff and foul-mouthed Billy Butcher to lending his voice to Bob in the Ark: The Animated Series, and yes, even a future Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat II, the actor has been booked and busy. But if you ask most comic book movie fans what his most criminally underappreciated role was? It’s Dredd. And finally, maybe, fans might get what they’ve been screaming about for over a decade. According to a juicy new rumour, Karl Urban might be returning as Judge Dredd in a brand-new Amazon Prime Video series.
Do you want even better news? The series is apparently being developed by the same creative team behind The Boys.
The rumour comes via the Tachyon Pulse Podcast, where the host dropped an exciting behind-the-scenes scoop: “Karl Urban is very, very interested… Amazon are looking at it because The Boys is coming to an end. Season 5 will be the last one, and Karl Urban—his name has gone through the roof over at Amazon. They like him very much.”
As many know, there were plans back in 2021 for Judge Dredd: Mega-City One, and Urban was in early talks to reprise the role (apparently). But like many projects around the time, the pandemic, studio hesitation, and industry strikes froze everything rather quickly.
“There was going to be a Dredd: Mega-City One… That never got off the ground. But now Amazon are looking at it again. And conversations have already started.” The podcast host continued, praising Urban’s dedication to the role and the character: “Karl Urban is a massive Judge Dredd fan. He insisted that Judge Dredd must keep the helmet on—unlike Stallone… Karl wanted to do a project that stayed far closer to the original comic books, and they succeeded.”
It’s not a big secret, everyone knows that Dredd (2012) deserved better. It was gritty, grimy, and felt like it came straight off the pages of 2000 AD. Written by Alex Garland, it was a no-frills, ultraviolent comic book adaptation that dared to not sugarcoat anything. And yet, despite glowing reviews, the film barely made enough at the box office to cover a Mega-City vending machine refill.
Karl Urban questioned the box office “fail” in an interview with Den of Geek: “How does a movie with a 78% (now 80%) approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes fail? Through zero audience awareness. Nobody knew the movie was being released. Dredd represents a failure in marketing, not filmmaking.”
He added that the DVD sales told a different story: “Dredd sold 750,000 units in North America the first week it went on sale… Proof that the audience, once they became aware, wanted to see it.”
Back in 2022, Urban was enthusiastic in interviews about a return to Mega-City One, saying: “Wagner and his entire staff of writers and illustrators have created so many wonderful stories that I, personally, as a fan of Dredd, would love to see. I can’t wait to see what they do with it.”
So, what could a potential series look like? The podcast hints that unlike the film, which had to scale down because of budget issues, the TV format would allow for deeper dives into Judge Death, the Dark Judges, and the apocalypse-level events from the comics that were too wild for a single movie. With the episodic format and Amazon’s hefty wallet, there’s now room to explore every nook and cranny of Mega-City One.
If this all comes together—and that’s still a big if—we could be looking at the gritty, violent, smart, and hyper-stylised Dredd universe that fans have dreamed of since the helmet first returned to our screens in 2012.
And let’s face it: after all the half-baked comic book adaptations we’ve had to endure, it’s about time Dredd gets another shot. A real one. With Karl Urban back behind the visor and the team behind The Boys in control? The show is bound to be a huge success.
Stay tuned. Justice might just be coming back to Prime Video.
RELATED: I Watched 2012’s Dredd Again, And It’s A Crime This Film Didn’t Get A Sequel
