If you’ve ever played a Rampage game, you’re familiar with the act of punching skyscrapers until they turn into piles of rubble. After doing this a few hundred times, you’d get tired of it and not play a Rampage game for another five years or so. But what if you didn’t have to press any buttons, and you just wanted to watch someone level cities for two hours? Who would you want to watch do that? The Rock. You’d want to watch The Rock do that.
New Line has wanted to make a Rampage movie a reality since at least 2011, and it seems that the project is finally about to get off the ground. The Hollywood Reporter reports that The People’s Champ is attached to the film, in which he’ll be teaming up once again with San Andreas producer Beau Flynn. Production is expected to start next summer, which would likely set it for release somewhere in 2017.
I’m conflicted. The Rock has proven himself to be the one pro wrestler (so far) that has the chops and natural charisma to turn a WWE career into genuine Hollywood superstardom. That said, even he hasn’t been able to escape the shoddy reputation of game-to-movie projects. He starred in the critically-panned Doom near the beginning of his acting career in 2005, and a planned Spy Hunter film never got off the ground soon afterwards (although a game featuring his likeness and voice did).
Whether the film has much to do with the Rampage series beyond “monsters destroy stuff” remains to be seen, as does The Rock’s role. Since the games were based on humans that morphed into these city-crushing beasts, it’s conceivable that the Brahma Bull could actually be playing George the gorilla. If this is the case, I eagerly look forward to the scene where the eight-time WWE champion accidentally eats a toilet.
The Rampage news comes just weeks after the announcement that Dwayne "Flex Kavana" Johnson will be playing Jack Burton in a Big Trouble in Little China remake. I played a lot of Rampage, I love Big Trouble in Little China, and I love seeing a wrestler actually make it on the big screen, but I’m reserving judgment on these recent announcements until I see the finished products. Video game movies and remakes of classics don’t have sterling reputations, so The Rock might have his work cut out for him in the next year or two.