As the self-proclaimed “hardest worker in the room,” Dwayne Johnson always has his fingers in a number of pies at any time, but he won’t be able to smell anything that’s being cooked up by Universal after its parent company suspended its development deal with his Seven Bucks Productions.
Of course, it’s more of a hard pause than an outright parting of the ways when the strikes have made it financially unfeasible for large corporations to continue paying people to do nothing, but it could all be remedied in an instant were these multi-billion dollar outfits to simply decide that paying writers and actors what they’re worth was an avenue worth exploring.
Either way, it won’t slow down The Rock much considering that he doesn’t have any projects in what you’d call “active development” at Universal other than his recently-announced Luke Hobbs spin-off that sees him returning to the Fast & Furious franchise, but before that he’s got to get Prime Video’s festive caper Red One and Disney’s live-action remake of Moana out of the way. Not only that, but NBC canceled his semi-autobiographical sitcom Young Rock in June after three seasons, so it’s all a bit moot really.
That being said, unlike J.J. Abrams – who recently saw his $250 million deal with Warner Bros. halted after delivering absolutely nothing – Johnson did at least manage to star in and produce several high-profile Universal efforts, so there’s that. Things have slowed to a crawl across Hollywood, but the A-lister and entrepreneur is never going to be lacking for things to do.
