Rogue Trooper is a film that Duncan Jones has wanted to make for 20 years, and his persistence has paid off, as the Moon and Warcraft director used Unreal Engine, Maya, hand animation, and The Volume to bring the 2000 AD comic strip to life.
Speaking to The Wrap for the film's North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (the film had its world premiere at Annecy International Animation Film Festival), Duncan said he's a longtime fan of the comic series and it was his own personal fandom of the Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons comic that kept the project alive across two decades.
"I was a genuine ‘2000 AD’ fan. I loved the tone of that comic book, it’s always been very satirical and acerbic and punk and political, but funny," said Jones.
He continued, "I don’t think people realize how funny ‘Judge Dredd’ is in the comic books. I wanted to do it. And Rogue Trooper as a character lent itself to the things that I was interested in.”
Jones also told the site that although the project started out in Unreal Engine, he quickly realized that exclusively using the video game engine wouldn't produce a final product that would feel cinematic.
"We were like, This isn’t going to look right, this is not going to work. We actually had to find a way to extract ourselves from Unreal for a while, go into Maya, go into some other tools, and then we came back for a final render at the end," Jones explained.
"It wasn’t the tight straight pipeline that we thought it was going to be, which is why it took like just over four years to make the movie.”
The most important thing for the pic at the moment is to secure a theatrical distributor. Jones wants the film to play in theaters, even if it's just for a limited run, before it heads to streaming.
"I’m not making a studio movie. I’m hoping that they will take confidence from the fact the audience liked it, and people are giving it good reviews,” said Jones.
Rogue Trooper left Annecy in June with solid reviews but no distributor; Jones is hopeful that TIFF yields better results.
Directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, Warcraft), this outlandish animated adaptation of the seminal British comic book follows a clone soldier bred for an interstellar forever-war and his fallen comrades whose personalities live on within his gun, helmet, and backpack.
The film was produced, written, and directed by Duncan Jones.
Aneurin Barnard (Dunkirk) stars as 19 / Rogue Trooper. Hayley Atwell (Avengers: Endgame) voices Venus Bluegenes and Sean Bean portrays (Game of Thrones) Colonel Dicey.
The film also features the voice talent of Matt Berry, Asa Butterfield, Jemaine Clement, and Jack Lowden.