Deadline and other outlets report The Penguin star Colin Farrell is in talks to play another, very different character for DC Studios: Sgt. Rock. The Irish actor, 48, is intended to star as the World War II soldier in a standalone movie directed by Luca Guadagnino (Queer, Challengers), which will begin filming this fall. Farrell is the latest actor to be connected to the project, following Daniel Craig, whom DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn said wasn’t approached to do the movie, but had had his name floated because he worked with Guadagnino on Queer.
Created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert in 1959, Sgt. Rock is the leader of the US infantry battalion Easy Company during the European theater of World War II, whose adventures have often veered into the supernatural and sci-fi. Movie versions starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and directed by Guy Ritchie and Francis Lawrence, were respectively mooted in the late ’80s and 2000s, but never materialized.
The DC Studios universe incarnation of the character made his first appearance in the Creature Commandos episode “Cheers to the Tin Man,” voiced by Maury Sterling, where G.I. Robot was portrayed as a member of Easy Company. Based on Gunn’s previous comments, Sterling is not playing the live-action version of Rock, because his role on the animated show was a minor one.
Farrell recently won several prizes, including a Golden Globe, SAG Award, Saturn Award, and Critics’ Choice Television Award, for The Penguin, in which he reprised the title role of Oswald Cobb after his initial portrayal in 2022’s The Batman. He is expected to return to the role in The Batman sequel, due out October 1, 2027, as well as an unconfirmed second season of The Penguin; presumably, projects like Sgt. Rock will provide him enough of a break from the prosthetics required to play Oz Cobb, which he has publicly commented became increasingly uncomfortable.
In the meantime, based on when it will film, fans can expect Sgt. Rock to hit theaters sometime in 2026, alongside DC’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (out June 26, 2026); the standalone Clayface movie directed by Speak No Evil‘s James Watkins (September 11, 2026); and the first season of Lanterns on HBO.
