James Gunn Comments More On Canceled DC Film, Leading Everyone To Believe It Was ‘Swamp Thing’, And Not ‘Sgt. Rock’
A new layer of intrigue has swept over the mysterious canceled DC project we all guessed was Sgt. Rock. Studio exec and Superman director James Gunn clarified why the unnamed project was dropped, and he is leading many observers to the conclusion that the suspect is someThing else.
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Gunn told NPR recently that he knew the script was no good, and nothing made it better, despite seeing a few drafts. “We had a screenplay that – you know, a movie that was greenlit,” he said. “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.'”
He continued, “Just because we have a good director attached and a good screenwriter, it doesn’t mean the script is working. Everyone is going to be upset at the end of this. It’s going to come out, 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.”
A few months ago, it seemed like Gunn and DC Studios killed Sgt. Rock. They couldn’t secure the services of Daniel Craig, so Colin Farrell stepped in, but the summer start for principal photography was nixed. That was thought to be the end of the mission, except for the extra note that they were postponing until next year.
Gunn would clarify that Sgt. Rock is still in development, just not where he wants it to be. As such, they are hammering it out. “I feel like we’re in a pretty good place. We’re still moving forward, but it’s not going to be…What would Peter want me to say here?” he remarked to EW. “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.”
For now, the film’s director, Luca Guadagnino, and its writer, Justin Kuritzkes, have moved on to other things. They might return to Easy Company when they have time, but they aren’t the only major names DC Studios tried to do business with. Logan director James Mangold’s status with Swamp Thing is also in limbo, which has journalists and the Internet putting two and two together. Maybe Alec Holland is the one stuck in a bog of despair.
Swamp Thing was announced as one of the chapters in the DCU’s “Gods and Monsters” saga when Gunn and Peter Safran took the reins. It had been a few years since the cancellation of the DC Universe series and since we first heard rumors of a new movie. JJ Abrams flaccidly attempted to pick up the scraps, but ultimately had nothing to show for his grandiose Justice League Dark Universe plans.
Mangold stepped in to helm and write the reboot. He even excitedly bragged about a Swamp Thing comic cover hanging on his office wall. The ball was said to be in his court while he worked on other stuff, including A Complete Unknown. Consequently, traction on the film has been slow, and updates are few and far between.
Interestingly, Mangold hasn’t given up on the Bernie Wrightson character just yet. He told comedian and actor Marc Maron on his WTF Podcast that he’s in a cooling-off period. “I honestly don’t know what’s coming next,” Mangold said. “I kind of went really rapid fire through a series of movies the last three, yeah, and this is kind of my kind of (cool down time).” This is after he stated that he wasn’t interested in franchise building.
This is all speculation until further notice; Sgt. Rock could still be the picture killed before the action. In either case, Gunn explains how excitement can get in the way and cloud the judgment of Hollywood’s decision-makers. “I would be surprised if it’s ever happened at a studio ’cause that’s just not the way things work,” he said in his NPR interview.
“People are really excited to have something greenlit, and then they go and they just make it because they have to say yes to everybody, and they don’t want to disappoint everybody. You know, for all the talk of the movie business being so based on dollars and cents, it is based on like me, like me, like me, like me, like me. And it’s terrible. People don’t want to be not liked. They don’t want to let people down, and it’s terrible. It’s not good for anyone,” Gunn added.
Swamp Thing has made multiple film, comic, and TV appearances since the 1970s, but like Blade over at Marvel, keeping the character’s soil fertile for anything verdant to sprout has been a Herculean labor lately.
