As one of the busiest names in the business, it felt a little unusual that Dwayne Johnson had yet to settle on his next onscreen role once he’s finished up with the DCEU’s Black Adam, but that’s changed in a major way after it was announced the world’s biggest movie star will headline and produce Amazon’s holiday-themed blockbuster action comedy Red One.
Seven Bucks’ Hiram Garcia wrote the initial story treatment for the project, with the script now being hammered into shape by Fast & Furious veteran Chris Morgan. Shooting is already penciled in to begin at some point next year, with an eye to having Red One premiere on Amazon during the 2023 festive season.
Plot details remain under wraps for now, but you’d imagine that Santa Claus will factor into the plot somehow, so we could realistically be seeing The Rock as a jacked Chris Cringle, especially when Garcia described Red One as “an epic, edge of your seat action adventure that takes the beloved holiday mythology and turns it on its head”. Amazon are said to have won a highly competitive bidding war to acquire the pitch, and the platform already has plans in place to market and merchandise it across their sprawling multimedia empire.
The intent is clearly to launch a massive interconnected franchise for Amazon, when Johnson teased an “enormous, fun and unique Red One holiday universe” in his statement celebrating the announcement. At this stage, we’re not quite sure what a shared mythology built out from a big budget Dwayne Johnson festive adventure could possible entail, but all parties seem to be sold on the notion that they could be onto something huge.
