What The Rock is Cooking: The Upcoming Dwayne Johnson Projects

In the near 17 years he’s been working in the film industry, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has had quite the career in Hollywood, starring in an increasingly larger number of films each year and earning progressively better reviews with each film, with his recent films having branched off into more comedies than the past, and the laughs have continued in the latest action-adventure Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the sequel to the fan-favorite 1995 Robin Williams film. With so much still to come from the actor, let’s take a look at what’s on the way and when we can expect it.

Rampage

• Director: Brad Peyton
• Co-Stars: Naomie Harris, Joe Manganiello, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
• Release: April 20, 2018

The script has been in the works for near a decade now and fans of the classic ’80s video game franchise will finally be able to get their rampage on (wink, wink) when the adaptation hits theaters this April. The Rock plays Davis Okoye, a primatologist with a close connection to albino gorilla George who must try and help his animal friend when he is transformed by a genetic experiment gone wrong that mutates him into a violent creature of enormous size. Okoye must team up with a discredited genetic engineer and a secretive government agent to try and find an antidote for George as well as two other creatures that have been transformed by the genetic experiment.

Skyscraper

• Director: Rawson M. Thurber
• Co-Stars: Neve Campbell, Pablo Schreiber, Chin Han
• Release: July 13, 2018

After finding major success with 2015’s California disaster movie, San Andreas, The Rock returns to the genre with the upcoming action thriller, Skyscraper. In the film, he plays a former FBI agent turned skyscraper security consultant who goes on the run when he’s been framed for setting the largest skyscraper in the world ablaze and must find those responsible and save his family’s lives as they are trapped by the flames in the building. Johnson reunites with writer/director Rawson M. Thurber for the film after the two found major box office and moderate critical success in 2016’s Central Intelligence.

Fighting With My Family

• Director: Stephen Merchant
• Co-Stars: Lena Headey, Nick Frost, Florence Pugh, Jack Lowden, Vince Vaughn
  
  
• Release: September 14, 2018

Fighting With My Family is inspired by the Channel 4 British documentary The Wrestlers: Fighting With My Family and tells the story of reformed gangster and former wrestler Ricky, his wife Julia, daughter Saraya and son Zak who make a living performing in tiny venues across the country. Ricky and Julia want a better life for their children and when brother and sister get the chance to audition for WWE, it seems the family dream is coming true and all their troubles will be solved. However, Saraya and Zak are about to learn that becoming a WWE Superstar demands more than they ever imagined possible as athletes and siblings.

Ballers Season 4

• Creator: Stephen Levinson
• Co-Stars: Rob Corddry, John David Washington, Omar Miller
• Release: Summer 2018

With being on so many film sets, one would think he has no time to stop and work on a ten-episode television series, but Dwayne Johnson says nay to these doubters and has worked on the hit sports comedy Ballers for three years now and after getting the greenlight for another season, he’s back on set working on the fourth season, which is set to premiere sometime during the summer of 2018. The series follows former football star Spencer Strassmore as he takes on the financial managing game and tries to spread the business to sports, hitting up his friends still playing football to try and get them to sign with his company.

Hobbs & Shaw

• Co-Star: Jason Statham
• Production: Script Complete; Pre-production announced
• Release: July 26, 2019

It caused a lot of ire from one of their fellow franchise co-stars, but the announcement of a Fast and Furious spin-off film focusing on the characters of Luke Hobbs (Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Statham) had a lot of fan excitement, as the rapport between the two in the eighth installment in the franchise was well-celebrated and enjoyed. Though Shaw has always been a villain in the franchise, it was a good change of pace seeing him work with the good guys for once, and with the future film seeing the two working together on their own, there’s no telling what hilarious and thrilling mission awaits fans.

Jungle Cruise

• Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
• Production: Set to begin filming early 2018

Though it might not be the most popular ride at Disney’s theme parks, that doesn’t stop the company from adapting it into a movie somehow, and The Rock isn’t one to turn down a project he deems has potential, so the combination of the two for a film set around the jungle cruise ride should make for an action masterpiece. Not much is currently known about the plot, but with action-director Jaume Collet-Serra (Non-Stop, The Shallows, The Commuter) behind the camera, it’s sure to be a thrill no matter the story.

Big Trouble in Little China

• Production: Announced; no release set

It might still be in the early stages of pre-production and it might be a remake, but the upcoming return of Big Trouble in Little China with Dwayne Johnson in the role of lead pseudo-hero Jack Burton certainly has some hype behind it. With how notoriously full his schedule is and with how little is known on the progress of the screenplay, it could be years before we finally see our cult classic trucker return to the big screen.

Black Adam

• Production: Pre-production announced; no release set

With his build and charisma, it’s amazing Dwayne Johnson hasn’t played a superhero on the big screen yet, but the wait will soon come to an end when Johnson dons the supersuit and becomes the villian/antihero Black Adam in the DC Extended Universe film franchise. Initially announced to debut in the upcoming Shazam! solo film, Johnson and Warner Bros. announced he would be appearing in his own film still in development, splitting the two characters off for now until producers are ready to bring them together in a future film.

San Andreas 2

• Director: Brad Peyton
• Co-Stars: Alexandra Daddario, Carla Gugino, Paul Giamatti
• Production: Announced; no release set

As if the two haven’t already worked together enough, with three films already complete together, The Rock and Brad Peyton (Journey 2, Rampage) will reunite once again for the sequel to the 2015 disaster flick San Andreas, in which Johnson played a Los Angeles Fire Department Air Rescue pilot racing to save his daughter and soon-to-be ex-wife from a major earthquake along the San Andreas fault line in California. While it’s unknown at this time how the sequel will pick up the damage left by the first film, the returning cast and director will be back to survive more mayhem and destruction sometime in the near-future.

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)