The Tip Sheet is spinning off. Introducing Space Invaders, a newsletter about movies and pop culture that invades this space on Saturday. Arrives irregularly during this pilot phase.
Until Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, no wrestler had ever made the permanent transition to movie star.
That’s not to say that wrestlers couldn’t enjoy movie success, but it was usually very limited; Andre the Giant had The Princess Bride, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper popped up in They Live, and George “The Animal” Steele had a small role in Ed Wood. Sometimes a Hulk Hogan or a Jesse Ventura would be able to have some kind of sustained career in movies, but for the most part, a wrestler had one path in front of them: wrestle till their bodies fall apart and then hit the convention circuit.
But Johnson proved that you could successfully make the transition, and not just to an ongoing acting career. He became a franchise in his own right and was regularly cited for his ability to save or revive different movie series. He can do action – obviously – but he can also do comedy, and adventure, and even song and dance (at least in animated form). He’s his own producer, he manages multiple film and TV projects while keeping one foot in his old wrestling world, and in the last few years he’s pivoted to business ventures like Teremana Tequila and the revival of the XFL.
These successes in multiple areas of art and commerce dovetailed nicely into Johnson’s mystique as a tireless worker. He’s up long before the sun and hitting the gym, he’s built a trusted team that can oversee his film projects cycling through the same, small group of filmmakers, and the promotion of those projects were often left in his massive hands, and the vast social media platforms that Johnson has developed. It’s all thanks to a carefully cultivated personality of neutral geniality that never offends anyone.
But like all Hollywood myths, there’s another version.
An exposé in The Wrap this week outlined how Johnson’s on-set (mis)behaviour led to a highly bloated $250 million budget on Red One, a comedy-action movie about a couple of tough guys that have to save Santa Claus when he’s kidnapped. According to the piece, Johnson was routinely late on set, rarely wanted to work longer than four of five hours, put producers in charge of the production who were woefully inexperienced, and, most famously, peed in a water bottle on set and then asked production assistants to get rid of it.
On the surface this is all rather typical Hollywood diva behaviour, but I’ll let Lainey Gossip explain why it’s worse in the case of The Rock:
“What makes these allegations unusual is that they’re aimed at Dwayne Johnson, who has built his public persona around work ethic and niceness. It’s not unlike what happened when the world found out Ellen DeGeneres isn’t as nice as her talk show persona made her out to be. People are extra offended when they discover someone that they think is nice is not, in fact, nice. Like, Vin Diesel has also been called out for being chronically late to set and rude to co-workers, but no one thought much of it because Diesel’s persona isn’t built on being a nice guy. It just sounds like bad movie star behavior, and nothing about Diesel suggests he’s above it.”
And it’s also come at the worst possible time for Johnson career-wise. He hasn’t had a clear blockbuster since Jumanji: The Next Level in 2019, his passion project Black Adam was a misfire creatively and commercially (and may have mortally wounded the DC movie universe in the process), and there’s been increased whispering that Johnson is playing it too safe with his choices, losing ground to former wrestling colleagues like John Cena and Dave Bautista who are not only commercial successful, but willing to take creative risks.
The Wrap piece gets at one of the reasons why. Red One, like other Johnson projects, is stacked with members of Team Rock; it’s directed by Jake Kasdan (the Jumanji movies), written by Chris Morgan (the Fast & Furious movies) and it’s produced by Hiram Garcia, brother of Johnson’s ex-wife and business partner Dany Garcia. As Upton Sinclair said, it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it, and in this case, their paycheques demanded that they keep Johnson happy and not challenge the status quo.
Still, it seems that Johnson has reached that conclusion on his own. This month he’s supposed to start production on The Smashing Machine, a biopic about UFC fighter Mark Kerr directed by Benie Safdie for boutique studio A24, the producers of Civil War. It’s the first time in over a decade that Johnson has taken up a role to stretch his acting muscles, but it remains to be seen if he still has some. Emily Blunt, a fine actress in her own right, has been cast as his co-star, but given the fact that Blunt was Johnson’s co-star in Jungle Cruise you can’t help but feel that the security blanket is still snuggly fastened around him.
The exposé gives expression to something that’s been apparent in Johnson for some time, a man who’s entirely too comfortable in his own skin and completely risk averse. That’s not the way Johnson was in the beginning. His early career was emblematic of someone who knew he had something to prove; he met expectations with The Mummy spin-off The Scorpion King and the action hit The Rundown (which included a cameo from Arnold Schwarzenegger passing the torch), but he also took risks. In the space of two years, Johnson appeared in Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko follow-up Southland Tales, played a gay bodyguard and aspiring actor in Be Cool, and did a heel turn to play a surprise villain in the video game adaptation Doom.
To understand the evolution (devolution?) of Johnson’s manicured image, look at his performance as Hobbs in Fast Five, where the character comes across as steroid riddled Javert with a slight southern twang. He doesn’t care a wit about the family code of Dom and the gang or their potential innocence in the killing of federal agents because he’s just here to bring in “two assholes whose names hit my desk.” Then, look at the last full appearance of Hobbs in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw where he's smirky and knowing yet kind and generous. He’s Officer Friendly with biceps.
Johnson brought a lot to the Fast franchise, but he also took something away: Family, almost all of Johnson’s movies since that time are about family. Even if the character he plays isn’t a father, and he usually is, he’s always the daddy. The protector. He leads, he inspires, he shields, he’s dependable, and he’s wholesome. He’s the – ahem – rock of whatever ragtag group he’s in the middle of. He doesn’t just say “I’ll be back,” he emphatically says, “I promise *you*, I’ll be back,” and he almost has a tear in his eye when he says it. He’s a teddy bear and superhero rolled up into one…
…but he also shows up late to do as little as possible and then hand you a water bottle full of pee. I guess they were right, don’t meet your heroes.
You should be able to see Red One on Amazon Prime on November 15.
The Bookshelf:
The Monk and the Gun (Tues-Thurs)
Sasquatch Sunset (except Sun)
Wicked Little Letters (Sat-Mon)
Galaxy Cinemas – Woodlawn:
Abigail
Challengers
Civil War
The Fall Guy
Godzilla x Kong: New Empire (till Wed)
Jeanne du Barry (Sat)
Kung Fu Panda 4
Mobile Suit Gundam: SEED Freedom (Tues-Wed)
My Fair Lady (Sat-Sun)
Shayar
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Unsung Hero
Wonka (Sat)
Starting Thursday: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Galaxy Cinemas – Clair:
Abigail
Boy Kills World (till Tues)
Challengers
Civil War
Dune Part Two
The Fall Guy
Godzilla x Kong: New Empire
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (starting Wed)
Kung Fu Panda 4
Tarot
Mustang Drive-In (Fri-Sun Only):
The Fall Guy (early show)
Night Swim (late show)
Princess Cinemas – Twin:
Beyond the Tree Line (Wed)
Irena’s Vow (Sat-Sun)
The King Tide (Sat-Sun)
The Old Oak
Wicked Little Letters
Princess Cinemas – Original:
Hundreds of Beavers (Sat-Sun, Tues, Thurs)
The Notebook (Sun, Wed)
The Sacrifice (Fri)
Sasquatch Sunset (except Sun)
Starting Friday: Evil Dos Not Exist
Apollo Cinema:
Best in Show (Wed)
House – 1977 (Thurs)
Love Lies Bleeding (Sat-Sun, Tues)
Malayalee from India (Sat-Sun, Thurs)
Nadikar (Sun, Tues)
Ponyo (Sat)
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (Sat)
This week on End Credits, Candice Lepage co-hosts as we watch Ryan Gosling not play the hero but play the stunt man! We’re reviewing what’s supposed to be the first big hit of summer with the action/comedy The Fall Guy, and we will talk about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe has evolved (devolved?) in the last five years since the release of Avengers: Endgame.
And finally, feel free to reach out to me by email at adamadonaldson [at] gmail [dot] com, or find me on Facebook, Twitter, and, of course, GuelphPolitico.ca!