After the production of Sgt. Rock got pushed back, Luca Guadagnino moved quickly to fill his schedule with Artificial. The director is in talks to helm the project for Amazon MGM Studios, and although deals haven’t closed, insiders say Andrew Garfield (We Live in Time), Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown), and Yura Borisov (Anora) are in early talks to star.
The film recounts the tumultuous period at artificial intelligence company OpenAI in 2023, when CEO Sam Altman was fired and rehired in a matter of days. It’s assumed that Garfield will play Altman, Barbaro will play chief technology officer Mira Murati, and Borisov will play Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder who led the movement to boot Altman out of the company. Assuming the deals close, the plan is to shoot in San Francisco and Italy this summer. The script was penned by Simon Rich (Miracle Workers), who will also produce alongside Heyday Films’ David Heyman and Jeffrey Clifford.
As for Sgt. Rock, there’s still a chance Luca Guadagnino could return to the project. No official reason has been given for the delay, though sources suggest it came down to scheduling conflicts due to the project’s plan to shoot outdoors. Production is now being eyed for summer 2026. There were also reported concerns about Guadagnino’s lack of experience with large-scale action, but he’s a highly accomplished filmmaker, and I have little doubt he could rise to the challenge.
The script, written by Justin Kuritzkes, is said to be a pulpy, Indiana Jones-style adventure. The story follows Sgt. Rock (played by Colin Farrell) as he teams up with a female French Resistance fighter in a race to find the legendary Spear of Destiny—the artifact said to have pierced the side of Jesus Christ and rumored to possess supernatural powers—before it falls into Nazi hands.
Created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert, Sgt. Rock made his debut in Our Army at War #83 in 1959. He’s a tough-as-nails World War II soldier who is the best there is at what he does, to borrow a phrase from another gruff hairy man. Hollywood has been trying to get the ball rolling on a Sgt. Rock movie for decades, with Arnold Schwarzenegger once attached to play the role.
