The superhero industry works in mysterious ways, but DC Studios and its ongoing reboot are more convoluted than they have any right to be. Co-chairs James Gunn and Peter Safran are making plans without much rhyme or reason, at least from the outside looking in. Their initial plans for the first “chapter” of the new DC Universe, “Gods and Monsters,” are being rewritten time and again. Projects that should be foundational to the reboot, like The Authority and Waller, have been stuck in purgatory, while films that feel entirely random — like villain spinoff Clayface — are getting priority treatment.
But no strategy has been more baffling than that involving Sgt. Rock, a film with few ties to the larger DCU. Luca Guadagnino and Justin Kuritzkes, the director-writer duo behind Challengers and Queer, were attached to develop the film, while The Penguin’s Colin Farrell was in talks to star. Given Guadagnino’s arthouse roots, it was hard to envision his take on a superhero project — and Farrell’s own involvement with the DCU made his potential casting all the more dubious. But Gunn and Safran doubled down on the new project all the same, fast-tracking the film for a summer production. It seemed like a lot of effort for a story that seemed to come out of nowhere — and after months of earnest prep work, it might have been all for naught.
