Taken from several different online sources-- possibly the dumbest concept ever conceived for a DC Comics movie adaptation
Quote:
November 10, 2009
Sgt. Rock Reporting For Duty
Sgt. Rock is finally seeing some action on the big-screen but he's somehow managed to get lost in the time-stream along the way. According to "The Hollywood Reporter", the film will not be taking place during World War II. Now, I'm no Sgt. Rock expert but isn't that like, oh I don't know, the entire point of the character?From the "Hollywood Reporter" article:
Quote:
"Until now, Rock had retained its World War II setting, with [producer Joel Silver] and the studio trying to make a big-budget action adventure movie that was a throwback to flicks like “The Dirty Dozen,” which feature acts of American derring-do.
But a big budget always was an obstacle and, “Inglourious Basterds” notwithstanding, period war movies have not been in vogue in Hollywood for years, unless it was a more serious contemplation of the subject like “Saving Private Ryan.” Also, American jingoism went out of style after 9/11; even this summer’s G.I. Joe movie dropped the toy’s “A Real American Hero” tagline and made the action team internationally focused.
The studio hopes moving the time period to the future solves the dilemma."
[End of quoted articles.]
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I can't wait to not see that movie.
Notice how they're focused on the time period before anything else because they think they can sell a futuristic space-actioner, but not an old-school WWII action flick. So forget the character's backstory, the historical context, or anything else. Mr. Writer-man, make me a movie set in the future! That's what's hot now and the kiddies love 'em!
Oh, the older fans are having fun with this one.
"Sgt. Rock will DESTROY ALL MARTIANS!
Starring Ed Begley, Jr. as Sgt. Rock."
Hey, I've got an even better idea: how about upping the ante and making Sgt. Frank Rock and the fighting men of Easy Company into a group of time-traveling, shape-shifting ninja warriors from the Japanese feudal era who battle an invasion of killer robots and space vampires in the 23rd century?
Wow... would that be cool or what?
Why even call this project "Sgt. Rock"? Why pay DC the licensing fee? It will be little or nothing like the original source material; all they're going to succeed in doing is (1) anger fans of the comic book series ensuring that bad word of mouth kills the film, and (2) confuse any merchandise tie-ins no end.
The producers should have hired a different set of writers to develop their own new franchise if this is the direction they wanted to go in. But no, that would have been the logical thing to do, so instead they've decided to rape the best and most famous WWII-era character in the DC universe by making him into just another futuristic action hero. What I'd like to know is this: have any of the crackerjack creative wizards at Warner's ever actually read even one issue of Our Army at War or Sgt. Rock comics? And why, pray tell, does a movie dealing with patriotic Americans fighting in WWII constitute a "dilemma"? Do the words Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers not ring any bells at all with these numbskulls?
It would be far better to have a smaller scale, but well-made motion picture version of Sgt. Rock-- even if it's direct-to-DVD-- that is done in the spirit of the original Robert Kanigher/Joe Kubert source material or maybe one of the newer Rock graphic novels (which have real possibilites) than whatever this misguided lunacy ends up as.
If you want to see what a film adaptation of Sgt. Rock should be like, rent a DVD of The Big Red One (the nickname for the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division in WWII)-- a real gem, though an underappreciated war film for it's time. That's probably as close to a decent Sgt. Rock movie as we're going to get at this point.
As a reminder of what a blown opportunity this is, take a look at two film clips below: first, a scene from Saving Private Ryan (which has the additional bonus of a reference to "Easy Company") and the trailer for the reconstructed version of The Big Red One...

