Forget blockbusters – Hollywood is doubling down on its big studio Rockbusters. Today brings news that, in the aftermath of high box office receipts for his mighty earthquake pic San Andreas, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is again teaming with New Line and producer Beau Flynn for a live-action Rampage adaptation.
The pic, the plot for which is being kept under wraps, takes inspiration from the ’80s Midway Arcade Treasures video game that has lived on throughout the years on a variety of platforms.
That game involved three towering monsters – a King Kong-esque gorilla, a Godzilla-sized lizard and a giant werewolf – on a path of destruction across the United States. Johnson, it seems, is about to put himself squarely in their path. Seeing as Mother Nature wasn’t a big-enough threat to truly perturb a being of The Rock’s incredible badassery, perhaps it makes sense that genetically mutated monsters are the next step.
Ryan Engle (Non-Stop) wrote the script for the Rampage movie, and New Line is currently looking around to snag a capable director for the pic. Flynn will produce alongside John Rickard, Johnson and Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions co-founder Dany Garcia.
New Line evidently wants to keep The Rock in-house for as long as possible – the highly bankable star is currently shooting action-comedy Central Intelligence opposite Kevin Hart for the studio. He’s also in line to star in a third Journey movie for the studio, should that long-in-the-works project ever get off the ground with San Andreas director Brad Peyton. Rampage will come first, though, with the actor planning to shoot it as soon as he comes off production on Universal’s Fast & Furious 8.
Johnson has shown a proclivity toward incorporating fantasy into his starring vehicles, having provided a spin on the ancient legend of Hercules (complete with the vicious multi-headed dog Cereberus) in a Brett Ratner-directed blockbuster for Paramount Pictures and MGM. Rampage sounds ridiculous but, well, let’s just say that realism isn’t the star’s strong suit.