You can be the exotic flavor of the month, a celebrated filmmaker whose movies are characterized by their emotional complexity, eroticism, and lavish visuals. You can be the recipient of numerous accolades, including a Silver Lion, an Academy Award nomination, and three BAFTAs, but that won’t help you in the unforgiving world of blockbuster movie-making. Luca Guadagnino’s film adaptation of DC Comics Sgt. Rock is dead.
According to The Hollywood Reporter , the movie was already in pre-production and was due to shoot this summer in the UK. Colin Farrell was onboard as the lead.
The Justin Kuritzkes penned script followed a race to claim the mystical Spear of Destiny before the Nazi’s retrieve it. Easy Company members were being cast, and the role of a female French resistance fighter had also been set.
Well, not anymore!
Details on why Sgt. Rock has been so brutally shut down are scarce, but reports say scheduling was an issue, and they may come back to it later. Other reports say that there were concerns over Guadagnino’s lack of experience in making action films, and the costs looked like going over the assigned $70 million with lots of outdoor and location shooting.
It looks like DC and Gunn/Safran are being true to their word, that they won’t just plow on regardless, like DC has in the past.
In the comics, Sergeant Franklin John Rock was introduced during World War II. Sgt. Rock fought in the infantry branch of the U.S. Army in the European Theatre and eventually rose to authority within his unit, Easy Company. The unit was a collection of disparate individuals who managed to participate in every major action in the European war.
Elsewhere in DC, Clayface is still scheduled to shoot in October.