Luca Gaudagnino’s new film ‘After the Hunt’ is out in cinemas this week. It stars Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, and Andrew Garfield, in a story about college professor caught in between a sexual assault accusation involving one of her students and a colleague at Yale University.
To our surprise, when we watched the film Screen Brief spotted a DCU easter egg that Gaudagnino placed in the movie.
In a scene toward the end of the movie, Julia Roberts’ character is walking out of a liquor store. In the window of the comic book store next door is a poster for a Sgt. Rock comic book. Specifically, ‘DC Horror Presents: Sgt. Rock vs. the Army of the Dead #1’ (2022).
Alternate Universe is a real comic book store located in New Haven, Connecticut—right nearby Yale University where the film was shot on location.
When searching Google Street View, it’s evident that the store often has comic book posters on display in its window. Historical images show posters of Spider-Man and other heroes in the window, but never Sgt. Rock. Clearly, Gaudagnino specifically placed the poster there as an easter egg for fans.
Notably, in the trailer for ‘After the Hunt’, the exact shot can be seen, but the posters from the window have been digitally removed. Gaudagnino must have wanted to save this easter egg as a surprise for fans.
For fans in the know, Gaudagnino was heavily rumoured to be attached to directing a Sgt. Rock movie for James Gunn’s DC Studios earlier in 2025. Gaudagnino was so involved that he was even photographed in a DC Studios sweatshirt February 2025.
The first draft of the Sgt. Rock movie script was written by Justin Kuritzkes. It was initially rumoured to star Daniel Craig as Sgt. Rock, before reports circled that Colin Farrel was later in talks. Neither actor ended up accepting the role and the project is currently on hold.
The latest update on the project is that Luca Gaudagnino is no longer directing, as James Gunn told Josh Horowitz in an interview from July 2025. However, Gunn stated that he is “hugely” hopeful that the project will move forward, despite it losing its director and star.
Sgt. Rock has already appeared in James Gunn’s DCU, in 2024’s Creature Commandos, where he was present in a flashback scene from WWII that told the origin story of breakout favourite character G.I. Robot.
If you enjoyed our easter egg analysis of Sgt. Rock in Luca Gaudagnino’s After the Hunt, check out more from Screen Brief below.
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