“Sgt. Rock” cleared what felt like its biggest hurdle to production when de Souza finished his outline before the start of the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike. “If I say ‘these ten sets have to be built,’ they know I’m not gonna change my mind and say, ‘Well, I changed my mind, there is no dentist’s office’ or whatever,” de Souza said. “So they started early preparations so we could hit the ground running when the strike ended.” When the strike ended after 153 days, de Souza knocked out his screenplay in just two weeks.
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Everything was moving quickly at this point. Location scouting was underway in Yugoslavia, while the casting process ramped up. They were making this movie. In what must’ve felt like a formality, Schwarzenegger dropped by the Warner Bros. lot one day to get fitted for his Sgt. Rock uniform. While making small talk with the costume designer, he learned the film would be shooting some 5,000 miles away from Sun Valley, Idaho. According to de Souza:
“[T]he costume designer said to him, ‘I can’t wait ’til we start filming. They say the Adriatic Coast is just like the Mediterranean!’ And Arnold said [Arnold voice], ‘Vat?’ And she says, ‘You know, the Yugoslavian coast, the beaches and resorts are fabulous.’ And Arnold, with his pants still pinned up, walked right over to the front office of the studio and said, ‘I said that I wouldn’t leave the continental US for this project. What’s going on here?'”
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The death of “Sgt. Rock” was swift and unceremonious. “As I understand it,” said de Souza, “They called Joel Silver, John McTiernan, and some executives over, and, whatever happened in that room, I wasn’t present, but Arnold left the project, and McTiernan left, too.” De Souza speculated that Schwarzenegger’s demand must have been legally binding for WB to let a tentpole action film die in a single meeting after an innocent costume fitting. My guess is that Silver’s loss was Paul Verhoeven’s gain, as “Total Recall” went into production right around the same time.
It’s a shame because de Souza said they’d taken Schwarzenegger’s accent into account and reworked the character. “[W]e had it set up so that Sgt. Rock was Austrian and his family had been killed by the Nazis […],” said de Souza. “He climbed over the mountains right behind the Von Trapp family. Nobody else could have filled that role the way it was written.”
Silver didn’t give up on “Sgt. Rock.” A-list screenwriters like John Milius (who must’ve been brought in to lure Schwarzenegger back to the project) and Brian Helgeland did passes on the script. Guy Ritchie and Francis Lawrence flirted with directing the film, and Bruce Willis once became loosely attached. Quentin Tarantino was offered the opportunity to film Peoples’ screenplay. Those iterations ultimately fell apart, and now “Sgt. Rock” is dead yet again.
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