The Walking Dead Star Jeffrey Dean Morgan Signs On For New Line’s Rampage Movie

From Walkers to grossly mutated creatures, Deadline brings word that Jeffrey Dean Morgan has signed on for Rampage, New Line and Brad Peyton’s tentpole that’s on course to storm into theaters in April of next year.

Production is just now beginning to judder into life, with Baywatch star Dwayne Johnson poised to take point as the bona fide lead. His mission? To safeguard the US of A from three impossibly large monsters – one crocodile, one gorilla, one wolf – that came into being after a series of lab experiments went horribly, horribly wrong.

He won’t do so alone, of course, given New Line has already fleshed out its ensemble cast with Moonlight star Naomie Harris, The Batman‘s Joe Manganiello, Jake Lacy, Marley Shelton, P.J. Byrne, Jack Quaid, Matt Gerald, and Breanne Hill. There’s also relative newcomer Malin Akerman (Billions) to consider, who’s been described as the calculating head of a tech company responsible for those aforementioned creatures. Akerman is the human villain pulling the strings, essentially, and we’re intrigued to discover how Peyton and Co. balance her wicked ways with the eye-popping spectacle of Rampage.

Circling back to Jeffrey Dean Morgan, though, The Walking Dead actor has landed the part of Agent Russell, an operative working under the “covert government division called OGA, and who rolls with serious swagger and attitude.” Expect Morgan to cause a headache or three for Dwayne Johnson’s hulking zoologist, who calls upon the help of Naomie Harris and Co. to identify the monsters and, perhaps most important of all, their innate weaknesses.

Loosely based on Midway’s arcade classic of the same name, Rampage is booked in for a theatrical release on April 20th, 2018. Morgan, meanwhile, only continues to be a menace on AMC’s The Walking Dead series.