There hasn’t been much movement on the feature film adaptation of “Sgt. Rock” – but thanks to ‘’G.I Joe’’, a Bunsen burner has been placed under the fictional infantry.

Francis Lawrence (“I Am Legend”) is set to direct the flick, based on a newly commissioned script by Chad St. John.

The character of Sgt. Frank Rock, who like Batman, Superman, The Flash and Wonder Woman, hails from the DC Universe, first appeared in Our Army at War #83 (June1959), and was created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert.

Though the comics take place in World War II, St. John’s script will reportedly be set in the future. Producer Joel Silver felt that old-time War flicks – sans the one’s Steven Spielberg directs – don’t work in today’s cinematic climate. And he could be right. Thus, “Sgt. Rock” will be a contemporary flick.

In the 1980s, Arnold Schwarzenegger – despite being an Austrian – was set to play the American GI in a John Milius-written pic. Even after the script got a polish by David Peoples (Peoples rewrote Rock’s back-story for Arnie, suggesting he had a German-American father and had the ability to speak German), the film lay dormant.

For the past five years or so, Joel Silver has been trying to bring “Sgt. Rock” to the big screen. The last script – which is said to be quite good – was by John Cox. At that time, Guy Ritchie agreed to direct the flick, but put the project on the back-burner to do his “Sherlock Holmes” flick. With Ritchie onboard the feature-film version of another comic fave, “Lobo”, Silver was forced to nab himself another helmer.

As for casting – Schwarzenegger is no longer attached; Bruce Willis has been mentioned but…considering the character was known only as ‘The Rock’ when he first hit the shelves, wouldn’t it make sense to cast Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in the part? Think of the possibilities marketing-men…. The Rock IS The Rock!

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