With “Superman” in theaters, the new DCU is officially underway (technically, the TV element of it started late last year with “Creature Commandos“), with “Supergirl” arriving next, on June 26, 2026, and “Clayface” on September 11, 2026. And Luca Guadagnino‘s “Sgt. Rock” was supposed to come out around then, too, before Warner Bros. scrapped the project in late April.
READ MORE: ‘Sgt. Rock’: Luca Guadagnino WWII-Set DC Comics Flick Scrapped At WB
Why James Gunn decided to scrap “Sgt. Rock” remains a mystery, but a new interview with NPR may shine some light on the matter. During the talk, Gunn spoke about a DCU project he recently nixed due to unresolved issues with its script. And while he doesn’t mention “Sgt. Rock” explicitly, his comments about “a good director…and a good screenwriter” matches up with Guadagnino and Justin Kuritzkes on board the nixed film. Let’s break down what Gunn said.
“I just stopped – you know, we had a screenplay that – you know, a movie that was greenlit,” Gunn told NPR. “We went about. We got second draft and third draft, and it just wasn’t changing. It wasn’t getting better. It was staying in the same place. And I said, we can’t make this film. We can’t. It’s not good. We know it’s not good.”
“Just because we have a good director attached and a good screenwriter, it doesn’t mean the script is working,” he continued. “It’s – everyone is going to be upset at the end of this – it’s going to come out, [and] the movie’s not going to be good. Director’s going to look bad, screenwriter’s going to look bad and we’re going to look bad. So I don’t want to have this. We’re not going to make the movie. And so we killed it.”
Based on Gunn’s phrasing, it’s safe to assume he’s speaking about “Sgt. Rock,” as it echoes similar comments he made to EW about the project last month. “What would Peter [Safran; DC Studios co-head] want me to say here? … So it’s still moving forward, but, yeah, right now it wasn’t exactly where I wanted it to be creatively, and so it needs to change a little bit,” Gunn told the outlet. However, he also started his response about the film’s status with, “I feel like we’re in a pretty good place, and “we’re still moving forward,” so maybe this nixed DCU project isn’t “Sgt. Rock” but another unknown one that was in development. The only possibility that comes to mind there is James Mangold‘s “Swamp Thing” film, but that’s only speculation.
“Sgt. Rock” was supposed to shoot this month with Colin Farrell onboard to play the title character (Daniel Craig, who worked with Guadagnino on 2024’s “Queer,” was set to star before he exited the project this Spring). Guadagnino had a solid creative team attached to the project, too: cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and costume designer Jonathan Anderson. But now “Sgt. Rock” is no more, and Guadagnino is instead is readying a late Summer/early Fall shoot for a film in Italy instead (“Artificial,” with “After The Hunt” star Andrew Garfield).
So did Gunn save Guadagnino and Kuritzkes from disgrace by cancelling “Sgt. Rock”? The real story behind the project’s shelving may one day be revealed, but let’s be honest: did any Guadagnino fans really want to see him make a big-budget superhero flick for DC Studios? On paper, the film didn’t sound like a great idea, so maybe it’s best for all involved to move onto other things.
