As New Line’s casting spree draws to a close, The Tracking Board reports that P.J. Byrne, star of Vinyl, Big Little Lies and Wolf of Wall Street, is on the verge of joining Dwayne Johnson et. al for Rampage.
Negotiations are ongoing, but if a deal were to fall into place, Byrne would star opposite Naomie Harris, Joe Manganiello (The Batman), Jake Lacy, Marley Shelton and Breanne Hill as an ethical scientist, one who works at a wildlife park that essentially goes on to become ground zero once the shit hits the fan. You see, much like Midway’s eponymous arcade classic, Rampage orbits around three creatures – a gorilla, a crocodile and a wolf – that have been transformed into sky-scraping monstrosities as a result of genetic experiments gone awry. Only Dwayne Johnson’s musclebound zoologist stands between the beasts and total annihilation, and with P.J. Byrne now circling, it’s fair to say that New Line has rallied quite the ensemble cast to help ward off the impending apocalypse.
Behind the lens for this one is Brad Peyton, who last collaborated with Dwayne Johnson for 2015 disaster pic San Andreas. Producer Beau Flynn is also involved in Rampage, which is hardly surprising given how that same dream team engineered San Andreas to become a box office hit to the tune of $474 million. Story-wise, Ryan Engle wrote the original draft for New Line, before Adam Sztykiel was drafted in to fine-tune the screenplay. Scribes Carlton Cuse and Ryan Condal also had a hand in the creative process early on in development.
Rampage has been earmarked for release on April 20th, 2018, indicating that the cameras ought to be rolling before the year’s end.