With all the press that superheroes get, it’s sometimes easy to forget that there are other types of comic books like “romance” or the ever-popular “American-G.I.s-blow-the-hell-out-of-Nazis” genre. Well, it looks like we might finally get another film in that last genre (apart the from Captain America: The First Avenger), as Twitch Films is reporting that Guy Ritchie has signed back onto the adaptation of the classic DC war comic Sgt. Rock.
Now, Hollywood’s been trying to put together a film version of everyone’s favorite cigar-chomping sergeant since way back in the 80’s. Back then, John Milius (Conan: The Barbarian, Red Dawn) and David Peoples (Blade Runner, Ladyhawke) both wrote scripts and the film was planned to be an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle. (In those versions, Sgt. Rock was changed from “Frank Rock” to German-American “Karl Rocklen” to better fit Arnie’s Austrian accent.)
Ritchie signed onto the latest version, written by John Cox (Boot Camp), back in 2009, only to leave the project shortly thereafter. He was replaced by director Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend), who reportedly wanted to change the setting from WWII Europe to a war set in the future. But if Ritchie has signed on, we may be back to getting the classic Nazi-killing flick Sgt. Rock deserves.