The upcoming sci-fi war movie is the first 2000 AD movie since 2012’s Dredd.
If you’re a nerd of a certain (largely British) stripe, the news that Duncan Jones was making a Rogue Trooper movie was certainly exciting – “zarjaz“, as nobody who has ever experienced an orgasm says in public.
But that was back in 2018, and it’s been a bit quiet since then. Fair enough – Rogue Trooper is an animated effort cobbled together in Unreal Engine 5, and these things take time. But finally we’ve got some first look images courtesy of Empire. Jones, who directed Moon, Source Code, and Warcraft, later dropped them on BlueSky, having ditched X (formerly bearable) some time back.
On the off chance you’re wondering who or what exactly a Rogue Trooper is, the character was born in the heady creative crucible that is 2000 AD, the venerable British sci-fi anthology comic that also gave us Judge Dredd.
Created by writer Gerry Finley-Day and artist Dave Gibbons, the strip followed the exploits of the titular Genetic Infantryman (give it a minute…) on the planet Nu-Earth, a world poisoned with toxic gases, radiation, and all manner of awfulness. Rogue and his fellow blue-skinned test tube troopers are designed to thrive in that environment. Unfortunately, they’re betrayed and massacred, leaving the last survivor (you know who) to track down the general who sold them out.
There’s an added wrinkle. GIs have their minds recorded onto biochips that can be retrieved after death and plugged into various bits of equipment, so Rogue is accompanied by his dead buddies Helm (on his helmet), Gunnar (on his gun), and Bagman (I’m sure you’ve got it by now). Whether that element makes the cut is up for grabs – plot details are scant, and the whole biochip thing has been dropped by the comics in the past (if you want all the lore, dig in).
The film sees Rogue voiced by Welsh actor Aneurin Barnard (The Goldfinch, Dunkirk), with Jack Lowden as Gunnar, Daryl McCormack as, Helm, and The League of Gentlemen‘s Reece Shearsmith as Bagman. The MCU’s Peggy Carter, Hayley Atwell, is in there too, plus Sean Bean, Alice Lowe, and Asa Butterfield, with roles yet to be announced.
But we do know that Matt Berry (What We Do In The Shadows) and Jemaine Clement (the other What We Do In The Shadows) are playing amoral scavengers Mr Brass and Mr Bland. And here they are:
Exciting stuff. 2000 AD is a vast, untapped resource for screen adaptation, and so far we’ve only had two Judge Dredd movies and Hardware, which is kind of an edge case. Hopefully this signals the flood gates are open. We haven’t had a trailer yet, but given that Duncan Jones was just announced for San Diego Comic Con on July 25, that seems like a safe bet.
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