Moon director Duncan Jones' long-planned adaptation of sci-fi war comic Rogue Trooper has completed principal photography. As revealed by Variety, the feature - hinted at in a teaser video back in 2018 on Jones' Twitter - is now taking the form of an animated adventure starring Mission: Impossible's Aneurin Barnard, Agent Carter's Hayley Atwell and Slow Horses' Jack Lowden.
The Rogue Trooper film, based on the strip of the same name from British anthology comic 2000 AD, tells the story of 19 (Aneurin Barnard), a blue-skinned super soldier fighting in a relentless future war. 19 is the sole-survivor of an invasion who must find the traitor who sold his comrades out. He's not alone, however - helping him will be the minds of three of his killed-in-action squad mates, whose personalities are digitally preserved in his gun, helmet and rucksack.
Here's a first teaser image for the new film, which has been created using Unreal Engine 5.
Alongside Barnard, Atwell and Lowden, other cast members will include Jemaine Clement, Matt Berry, Diane Morgan, Alice Lowe, Asa Butterfield, and Sean Bean.
Duncan Jones said of the film and the comic: "2000 AD offers a very different flavour of comic action: Political and brutal at times, but always with a Pythonesque twinkle in the eye. Dredd (2012) was a taste of what 2000 AD has to offer and now we get to show the world another side of the beast. It is a genuine privilege to be given the opportunity to make Rogue Trooper."
Rebellion CEO, Jason Kingsley CBE, will be a producer on Rogue Trooper alongside Jones, Stuart Fenegan and Chris Kingsley. He added of the new film: "We are thrilled to be working with Duncan Jones, who is a fellow British creative visionary and 2000 AD fan with global reach. Rogue Trooper highlights Rebellion's leading position within the entertainment industries. It has been filmed at our dedicated Oxfordshire film studios and combines beautiful storytelling from our iconic 2000 AD comic book universe with animation and production technology from the video game industry. We cannot wait for everyone to see these incredible stories bought to life on screen."
Created by Gerry Finley-Day and Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons in 1981, the Rogue Trooper series follows a G.I. - that stands for Genetic Infantryman, incidentally - named Rogue in the comic, as he battles in the war between the Norts and Southers on the environmentally toxic planet of Nu-Earth. The comic was relaunched a few years later in 1989 to focus on a different G.I., Friday, though he was eventually written out in 1996 with the stories published after returning to Rogue. Several spinoffs - Venus Bluejeans, Jaegir, The 86ers, Tor Cyan and The Hunted - have also been published in the pages of 2000 AD.
The film will complete production in 2025, though there is no word yet on a release date.
2000 AD is also the home of Judge Dredd. Here's our pick of the the best Judge Dredd stories of all time.
