20 years after Luca Guadagnino first met, way back in 2004, the Italian auteur and British acting heavyweight are finally about to release their first film together, William S. Burroughs book adaptation Queer. A sensual, desirous affair set in '50s Mexico City, the movie is pretty much everything you might hope for and expect from a Guadagnino x Craig team-up. And it looks like the creative duo aren't going to leave it another two decades to get back on set together again — though the proposed project for their sophomore film is anything but to be expected. According to Deadline, Guadagnino and Craig are gearing up to step into James Gunn and Peter Safran's DCU with a movie based on DC Comics legend Sgt. Rock.
Now, before we jump into this one, a healthy pinch of salt is in order — this is not a DC Studios official announcement, but rather an 'inside sources' type deal hailing from Deadline's more often than not on the money 'The Dish' column. Disclaimers issued, according to said column, this mooted Sgt. Rock movie already has a decent script in place from Guadagnino's Challengers and Queer scribe Justin Kuritzkes, and is far enough along that it could potentially be the director's next project, superseding his recently announced American Psycho remake at the top of his ever-lengthening list of in-the-works films.
A Sgt. Rock film would definitely represent a major change of pace for both Craig and Guadagnino, but with the latter telling Empire in this month's Andor Season 2 issue that he's ready to leave his cycle of movies centred around desire behind for a while after Queer's release, it would be fascinating to see what he and the former James Bond could do in the DC sandbox. For those who don't know, Sgt. Frank Rock is one of the major characters to emerge from the war comics boom of the 1950s. Neither messianic alien nor batsuited billionaire, Sgt. Rock is a WWII soldier, a leader of men who's a crackshot, handy in a street-fight, and — in the comics at least — goes on to at one point command Task Force X (aka The Suicide Squad). Basically, he's exactly the kind of deepcut, divergent hero James Gunn would bring into his burgeoning new DC Universe — and exactly the kind of 'not like the other comics' character that you could see appealing to an auteur looking to dip a toe in more mainstream waters, and an actor looking to challenge audiences' expectations.
Sgt. Rock movies have been floated in the past, with Arnold Schwarzenegger at one point set to play him in the late 80s and filmmakers like Francis Lawrence and Guy Ritchie circling projects based on the Pennsylvanian Easy Company leader. Of course, only time will tell whether or not this Luca Guadagnino and Daniel Craig joint ever sees the light of the day, but for the time being it's certainly an exciting idea to mull over.