Judge Dredd marked a rare stab at sci-fi for Sylvester Stallone, who later dubbed the 1995 blockbuster his “biggest mistake.” While he’s enjoyed much success throughout his career, Stallone has made many movies he regrets, having called out misfiring projects such as Rhinestone, Escape Plan 2: Hades or Driven in the past. He was also the victim of an excellent prank when Schwarzenegger tricked Stallone into Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot; Arnie knew the film would be terrible, but feigned interest so his box-office rival would sign on.

Stallone’s career went through many fluctuations during the 1990s, with Judge Dredd being one of his biggest disappointments. The film had an amazing supporting cast and production design for Mega-City One, though it completely misunderstood the 2000 AD source material. Judge Dredd grossed a grim $113 million on an estimated $90 million budget (via The Numbers) killing any hope of a franchise. While the 2012 reboot Dredd received great reviews and a cult following, it was another financial failure.

Sylvester Stallone Believes Judge Dredd Is His Biggest Missed Opportunity

Stallone laments Judge Dredd as his “biggest mistake”

Stallone is usually wry about movie failures, like his poorly received Saturday Night Fever sequel Staying Alive or Rhinestone, but he sounds downright melancholy whenever he discusses Judge Dredd. In 2008 the star spoke eloquently with Uncut magazine about all the things that drew him to the project, including its themes and the issues it explored.

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.

Stallone wasn’t familiar with the 2000 AD comics when he signed on, but he quickly saw the potential in adapting it. Regardless, he looks back on Judge Dredd “as a real missed opportunity” (via IndieLondon) and feels it should have been more fun, instead of trying to walk the line between serious and comic. He also cites clashing with director Danny Cannon, and the fact that nobody involved could agree on the movie’s tone. Cannon filmed a dark, R-rated action thriller with a satirical edge, while Stallone and the producers wanted a lighter PG-13 adventure.

The final film can never reconcile those tones, where scenes of cringe-worthy humor (often delivered by co-star Rob Schneider) give way to scenes of brutal action. It’s unlikely Stallone is blameless in the way Judge Dredd turned out either, with the film doing a terrible job of translating the comic character and his stoic persona to the screen. Instead, Stallone’s Dredd is prone to bad action hero quips and has an ill-fitting romance with Diane Lane’s Judge Hershey.

Stallone Dismisses The Judge Dredd Helmet Controversy

There was zero chance Stallone was going to cover his face for the entire film

Possibly the most controversial thing that Stallone’s Judge Dredd did was remove the character’s helmet – which is a major no-no from the comics. While Dredd has taken his signature helmet off many times in 2000 AD, his face has never been seen clearly, and this is a rule Karl Urban’s take on the character held to. Given that Stallone was a major star and the movie was being sold on his name, there was zero chance the 1995 film would have covered his face for the entire runtime. Stallone also feels this was far from the movie’s biggest failing.

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.

The star makes the point that there are much bigger issues at play in Judge Dredd than the helmet. The Cursed Earth is one of the famous elements from the comic, but this entire section is a brief subplot in the film. Strip away the futuristic setting and gadgets, the film basically riffs on the plot of Stallone’s Tango & Cash, another film where a cop gets framed for murder and sent to prison. Of all the interesting lore and storylines Judge Dredd could have explored, it went for the most hackneyed option imaginable.

Still, the movie could have handled the helmet issue more creatively. For instance, when Stallone’s protagonist is sentenced around Judge Dredd’s midway mark, it would have been more impactful to see a character who defines himself as a living embodiment of the law stripped of his uniform and helmet then. This would have been emotionally devastating for Dredd, but instead, Stallone takes the helmet off about ten minutes in like it’s no big deal.

Judge Dredd Had A Troubled Production

Burger King wanted nothing to do with the movie’s R-rating

Judge Dredd is a project that spent years in development hell, as it was tough for producers to grasp the comic’s dark satire and tone. Arnold Schwarzenegger pᴀssed on the lead, while directors like Tony Scott and Renny Harlin also circled the project. Instead, the director’s chair went to a young British filmmaker named Danny Cannon, who was a fan of 2000 AD. Despite this, he clashed with both Stallone and producers and, despite being asked to deliver a PG-13 movie, Cannon did nothing to pull back on the violence.

Screenwriter Steven E. de Souza described to Oliver Harper how he had delivered a PG-13 screenplay that implied violence, only for Cannon to film protracted scenes of gore. This includes the death of Jürgen Prochnow’s villain, who gets his arms and legs ripped off by a robot. As written, this took place offscreen, but Cannon had a lifesized dummy of the actor built and actually filmed the character’s brutal death. This and other sequences of violence led to Judge Dredd getting rated X by the MPAA.

A desperate plea by the producer led to one final MPAA appeal, where the film was given an R rating instead. This meant the blockbuster’s planned tie-in with Burger King had to be scrapped, as the chain couldn’t sell toys for an R-rated film. Cannon has rarely spoken of the experience of Judge Dredd in the years since, though he swore off working with another A-list star following his time with Stallone.

Judge Dredd Could Have Been One Of Stallone’s Great Franchises

There’s no reason there couldn’t have been a trilogy of Judge Dredd movies

The world of Judge Dredd in the comics is an incredibly vast and rich one. There are decades’ worth of great characters and story arcs (The Dark Judges, the Cursed Earth saga, etc), and tonally it has something for everybody. Judge Dredd comics can be funny, violent, creepy, heartbreaking or extremely political, depending on the writer or artist. With all that considered, it should have become a franchise to rival Rocky or Rambo for Stallone.

Given how big comic book movies have become, Stallone undoubtedly knows this too. The star does seem to shoulder some of the responsibility for this and perhaps realized too late that Judge Dredd was lacking a united vision from the creatives involved. 2012’s Dredd would right the ship in this regard on a much lower budget – unfortunately, it failed to connect with audiences either.

Source: The Numbers, Uncut, IndieLondon, Oliver Harper