When a director is booted from his film during post-production, it isn't necessarily a portent of box office disaster. Remember all the squabbling surrounding Stephen Somers and his work on GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra? Rumors had him getting bounced from it and the studio essentially taking over. Whether those rumors were true or not nobody knows, but since the film ultimately made money nobody really cared. On the other hand, Prince of Persia ran into similar issues with director Mike Newell, and audiences stayed away from the film in droves. So it's a mixed bag when situations like this arise, and it looks like we're about to find out how it affects the Judge Dredd relaunch.
24 Frames reports that the director of Dredd, Pete Travis, has been kicked out of the editing room while post-production is underway. The old "creative differences" chestnut has been floated as the cause, with Travis and the film's producers not able to see eye-to-eye ever since principle photography was completed earlier this year. In an interesting move, one of those producers and the film's writer, Alex Garland(28 Days Later), has taken over. Some say he's done so much work on it that he may even receive a co-directing credit. Others in the know of the situation say Travis isn't totally out of the picture, keeping apprised of the situation via the internet(huh, what?). With reshoots on some scenes a possibility, there remains an outside chance that Travis could be at the helm for those, although I would seriously doubt it. Studios don't take this drastic a measure if they want the director to have any involvement.
This puts a heavy wet blanket on a film that has a lot going for it. Judge Dredd is a comic book character in dire need of an accurate depiction, not that junk we saw in the Sylvester Stallone flick. Karl Urban would finally get his shot at being a legit leading man, even if his face is hidden under a bucket helmet the whole time. With supporting turns by Lena Headey(300) and Olivia Thirlby(Juno), Dredd is a potential hit if it's not weighed down by negative buzz like this.
