Warner Bros’ Sgt. Rock To Fight In The Future
Posted by sean in Latest News, Movies on November 11th, 2009
Warner Bros. seem to finally be moving forward with their big-screen adaptation of DC Comics World War II hero Sgt. Rock. Way forward. Like, into the future.
The project, which has been in the works for the last 20 years, has hit a number of production snags along the way. Many of these, more recently, have been related to big budgets and a general lack of interest in WWII period pieces. Enthusiasm for American war movies has dropped off considerably in the years following 9/11, to the point that it seems like only Saving Private Ryan-esque, serious meditations on the topic of war (or Quentin Tarantino) can succeed. This has led to the studio’s recent decision to abandon the ’40s setting altogether and move the character to the battlefields of the future.
It’s unclear whether this latest iteration will actually happen, but currently Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend, Constantine) is attached to direct a script written by Chad St. John, a relative unknown. Joe Silver, who has been trying to bring the war hero to the screen for decades now, is producing along with I Am Legend collaborator Akiva Goldsman.
If this does happen, I’m not sure how to feel about it. I’m too young (and too Marvel-centric) to have any major connection to the character, but if you’re going to make a movie about a jingoistic American WWII hero, except without the Jingoism and the WWII, why even bother keeping the Sgt. Rock name? Certainly, if the setting is that different, it’ll have to change the character, maybe enough to lose the interest of the comic’s original fans. Still, while I Am Legend and Constantine aren’t perfect films, they were fairly well-directed, and they look great. If this bizarre tale of future past is gonna come to screen, Lawrence is a guy I’d trust to do it.
That said, you don’t see Marvel studios pushing their Captain America adaptation into a future setting. Why? Well, I suppose it would screw over the whole Avengers tie-in. But also: it just doesn’t really make sense.
Kind of like this.
