We sat down with Karl Urban in LA recently to talk Priest, but while we had him we asked a few quick questions about Dredd as well, the new Judge Dredd film in which he stars as the behelmeted law-man.
Urban talks about being aware of the expectations of fans, but adds, "We went to extraordinary lengths to honour the source material, and John Wagner himself came out to set and was really happy with what he saw. It's inevitable that not everybody's going to be happy, and there's going to be elements that people will see that are missing or aren't in the first, introductory movie, but I think that as long as you remain faithful to the essence of the source material you're on the right track."
Didja notice that bit about "first, introductory" movie? It sounds to us as if the filmmakers are very much thinking in terms of franchise here. Now in fairness, Andrew Macdonald hinted as much at last year's Movie Con, saying that, "If we get it right, [screenwriter] Alex [Garland] has a couple of ideas for other stories as well." But this is further evidence that they're feeling confident, or at least optimistic, about this effort.
The Dredd stuff starts at about 02.00, so skip to that bit to hear what Urban has to say - he also talks about the tone of the film.
Priest is out today; Dredd is due out late this year.