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Sgt. Rock Movie Update
Friday, April 26, 2007
by Scott Collura If the success of Sony's Ghost Rider movie proved anything, it was that B-list comic book characters can be turned into successful films — Spider-Man's not the only game in town, after all. And one such B-lister who might be getting his chance at Hollywood stardom very soon is DC Comics' World War II hero Sgt. Rock. IGN recently caught up with David Gambino, the vice president of production for Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment, to discuss the status of the project. Gambino says that one of the toughest aspects of getting the film off the ground is finding the right actor to play the lead character. "It's going to be a challenge because it's a big movie to mount and it's going to require someone to play Rock, and there's not a lot of guys out there who can really step into the shoes, put a helmet on, and be a real tough guy," says Gambino. "He's written in the comic as being this really bulky, muscular guy. That's not an easy thing to cast." That said, Gambino reveals that the screenplay for the proposed film is in good shape and that discussions are currently underway as to how to shoot the picture — with the notion of doing it 300-like in front of greenscreens and with digital backgrounds being an option. "The good news is we have a fantastic screenplay [by John Cox] and everybody's really happy with it," he says. "It's really just about trying to attach cast right now and really decide what the movie is going to be, how we're going to make it. There's been talk about possibly doing it like a 300, really making it like a graphic novel come to life, but no decisions have really been made on that. It's pretty exciting though. It's a project that Joel has had for probably going on 15 or 20 years now. It was something that he almost had in production with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the late '80s and it ultimately fell apart in financing at the studio. But it's something he's been hoping we can crack forever and we finally have a script that everybody's happy with, and now it's just a matter of getting the ball rolling here and trying to put it into production." As for how the war aspects of the film might play for modern audiences, Gambino says that he sees the character as simply being a patriot from a simpler time — one that hopefully will appeal to the viewers of today. "It's a challenge in the fact that it's a period piece," says Gambino of the character, who does not have superpowers, does not wear a cape, and doesn't even live in the present day. "Obviously Sgt. Rock is pretty popular with people who follow comics but I think ultimately what Sgt. Rock has is a great patriotic war story [that] is really what it is at its core. And we're living in times now where people are questioning whether or not we should be in Iraq, and I think World War II was the last war where it was pretty clean-cut who was the good guy and who was the bad guy. I think audiences still love that, they still love going back to that era where the politics of the time were very clear as to who we wouldn't want to take out and who were the heroes. And Sgt. Rock tries to capture some of that." During our chat with Gambino, he also filled IGN in on the status of The Factory, a horror script from Morgan O'Neill, the winner of the Australian Project Greenlight. That film is expected to go into production later this year. "The Factory is a script that I picked up about six months ago from a young filmmaker from Australia," he says. "Basically [it's] a character-based horror film about a detective in present day Buffalo whose daughter is kidnapped. There's been a rash of missing girls in the city and this guy has to go to a very dark place to find his daughter who has been taken by someone. I want to be cautious about what I say because we're just getting into the process of it, but it's pretty great and I'm expecting it to be probably our next film down the line in the winter." 
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![As for how the war aspects of the film might play for modern audiences, Gambino says that he sees the character as simply being a patriot from a simpler time — one that hopefully will appeal to the viewers of today. "It's a challenge in the fact that it's a period piece," says Gambino of the character, who does not have superpowers, does not wear a cape, and doesn't even live in the present day. "Obviously Sgt. Rock is pretty popular with people who follow comics but I think ultimately what Sgt. Rock has is a great patriotic war story [that] is really what it is at its core. And we're living in times now where people are questioning whether or not we should be in Iraq, and I think World War II was the last war where it was pretty clean-cut who was the good guy and who was the bad guy. I think audiences still love that, they still love going back to that era where the politics of the time were very clear as to who we wouldn't want to take out and who were the heroes. And Sgt. Rock tries to capture some of that." During our chat with Gambino, he also filled IGN in on the status of The Factory, a horror script from Morgan O'Neill, the winner of the Australian Project Greenlight. That film is expected to go into production later this year. "The Factory is a script that I picked up about six months ago from a young filmmaker from Australia," he says. "Basically [it's] a character-based horror film about a detective in present day Buffalo whose daughter is kidnapped. There's been a rash of missing girls in the city and this guy has to go to a very dark place to find his daughter who has been taken by someone. I want to be cautious about what I say because we're just getting into the process of it, but it's pretty great and I'm expecting it to be probably our next film down the line in the winter."](http://moviesmedia.ign.com/movies/image/article/783/783737/sgt-rock-20070426095308349.jpg){kind=link}