Let the record state that The Rock is good. I love The Rock. You love The Rock. We all love The Rock. In this day and age he is, like Thanos, inevitable.
I worry that there will come a time when we no longer love The Rock and I worry that it will be The Rock’s own doing.
Some lie in bed at night tossing and turning, worrying about their loved ones, or decaying relationships, or bills they have fallen behind on. They worry about the certainty of death and whether or not anything comes after it, whether their loved ones who have passed on are in a better place or if they were greeted with a vast nothingness. I, on the other hand, have spent most of my tossing and turning time obsessing over the precarious point at which The Rock’s career currently sits and how he will course-correct – or if he will at all.
See, we all love The Rock. But we are slowly reaching a point where we love The Rock’s movies…less. It’s not so much that there’s been any drastic change in quality. Most of his movies since his debut in the Fast & Furious universe back in 2011 have been bonkers action movies that are often generally mediocre in objective quality, but get by on The Rock’s indomitable star power and the appeal of their general insanity (G.I. Joe: Retaliation being a prime example of this). His pattern has grown steady: two, MAYBE three movies a year, one of them usually being something with some semblance of family appeal (Moana, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle). All the while he starred in a hit HBO show in Ballers, a show that certainly existed for five years and broke numerous ratings records despite the fact that I know like, five people who have ever watched it.
Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham in ‘Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.’ (Photo Credit: Frank Masi / Universal Pictures)
That’s the thing about The Rock: it doesn’t always matter if the movie is good. You’re paying to see The Rock do Rock shit, not watch a masterpiece. He’s such a compelling screen presence and such a radiant celebrity in real life, you can’t help but want to engage with whatever he’s working on.
Then 2018 happened. 2018 was rare for The Rock in that it was…bad. It was a bad, bad year. He had two films hit theaters in relatively close proximity, those films being Rampage and Skyscraper. Rampage proved an interesting case in that it should have been an absolute slam-dunk, being that it’s a movie in which The Rock fights giant monsters, something I have wanted to watch since I was a small boy. It ultimately proved a disappointment. It certainly didn’t help that the film opened just before Avengers: Infinity War (perhaps you have heard of it) which quickly sucked up any and every box office dollar in sight for weeks on end, but it largely came down to the middling response the film received. It’s a clunker. A concept that should have printed money for all those involved ended up coming dangerously close to being an outright bomb.
And then there was Skyscraper, the most non-event moment in The Rock’s recent history. It came. It went. Nobody seemed to care. It made a little bit of money overseas but largely went forgotten.
‘Skyscraper’ (Photo Credit: Universal Pictures Corporation and Legendary Pictures)
That was it. 2018 was a wash for The Rock. Something was beginning to become evident: he cannot do this forever. To clarify, “this” does not refer to “acting” so much as it does “maintain this level of stardom while making this sort of movie in the long term.” The luster of this version of The Rock is starting to fade. It can be saved, but not without significant action being taken.
Take a look at The Rock’s filmography and you’ll notice that most of the films in which he’s involved are produced or co-produced by Seven Bucks Productions, the production house he runs with Dany and Hiram Garcia. Seven Bucks is The Rock’s baby, a production juggernaut that has had a hand in everything from San Andreas to The Titan Games. As such, The Rock serves as a producer on almost every film he’s worked on since becoming the biggest star in the world.
‘Ballers’ (Photo Credit: HBO)
It’s a savvy financial move, but one with implications beyond that. The Rock’s role as a producer grants him significant control over the films and TV shows he works on, far more than most actors in starring roles are likely to have. Now, keeping this in mind, look at the directors he’s worked with this decade. It’s not a list without some talented names attached (his Fast & Furious directors are reliably great and he acted under Michael Bay for Pain & Gain), but you’ll find that it’s mostly directorial journeymen, guys without a distinct sense of style. They’re not without their hits (Jake Kasdan made Walk Hard! and Rawson Thurber is responsible for Dodgeball!), but they’re not household names by any means.
Look a little further back in his filmography and you’ll notice that there was a particularly notable instance in which he worked with an auteur: 2006’s Southland Tales, directed by Richard Kelly (who brought us Donnie Darko just a few years before). While its reputation has warmed in the years since its release, it was a notorious bomb when it first hit theaters. It was the first real bomb of The Rock’s career and he’s since seemed largely averse to working with anyone remotely resembling an auteur.
When taking this into consideration, his role as a producer and his choice of directors seems to paint a picture of an actor afraid to surrender control. The Rock is, after all, the undisputed king of image and brand management in Hollywood today. While it feels unfair to assume that it was just the one experience that spooked him, Southland Tales does feel like the moment in which The Rock realized that in order to fight the uphill battle ahead of him (transitioning from wrestling to Hollywood is a path few are able to traverse), he’d need to play it safe. And once he made it to the top, playing it safe clearly kept him there.
But no one stays at the top forever, at least not in the same form in which they ascended. What changes does he need to make in order to preserve his status as the most beloved leading man in Hollywood?
‘The Fate of the Furious’ (Photo Credit: Matt Kennedy / Universal Pictures)
I’m no agent or producer (though I am a Professional The Rock Liker), so take this with a grain of salt, but it would seem that the best way to restore public faith in The Rock would be for The Rock to be in better movies – not simply better versions of the movies he’s been making but better movies outside of that very confined field. Here’s the thing: The Rock is a pretty good actor and the few instances in which he’s taken on roles that skew outside of his comfort zone (Central Intelligence, Jumanji, and Moana) stand out as some of the best work of his career.
But these moments are often limited in quantity due to his aversion to working with big-name directors. If he works with a Shane Black, Greta Gerwig, or Martin Scorsese type, he is no longer in a position in which he has the sort of control he clearly likes to exert over his projects. It’s an understandable fear for someone who wears as many hats as he does to hold – what if he gives up that control and it backfires? The thing is, even a great failure under a bolder director is going to be more interesting to the public than a middling success (or outright failure) of yet another movie in which the plot is “The Rock fights _____.”
‘Jumanji: The Next Level’ (Photo Credit: Frank Masi / CTMG)
Now, in this instance it’s pertinent to note that The Rock isn’t in the Winning Oscars business – he’s in the Making Money business, and a critically acclaimed black comedy or awards-bait drama is never going to make as much money as the most middling of blockbusters. However, movies like those come with a potential reward that transcends the financial and cannot be quantified. They would keep The Rock’s brand and image fresh in the coming years, showing audiences that he’s capable of far more than just blowing stuff up and punching bad dudes (which, given the limits of even the most extraordinary human bodies, he cannot do forever). Taking these risks with directors who push him to become more than just an action star just once a year (he’d still have time for a big loud summer blockbuster every year if he wanted) would be a long-term investment in his future as a bankable movie star. A drama about cancer patients, for instance, might not make Hobbs & Shaw money, but it might serve to make people a bit warmer to the idea of showing up in theaters for his next Hobbs & Shaw*-esque endeavor.
It’s paradoxical, I know. In order to seize back control of his public image and reputation, The Rock must surrender some of the control he’s worked so hard to earn over the last decade. It may seem critical to say so, but I saw it because I love The Rock – sincerely, I do. Movie stars come and go and I think the ones who manage to stick around and navigate the highs and lows that he has since breaking out in The Scorpion King have something special. I want The Rock to be in movies for a very long time – it’s just that in order to do that, he needs to be willing to take the risk and make better ones.
Tres Dean is a Geek contributor who covers The Rock frequently for the site. You can pick up his first book For Your Consideration: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, published by Quirk Books, in stores and online now.
More on Geek.com:
- ‘Shazam’ Spin-Off ‘Black Adam,’ Starring The Rock, Coming December 2021
- Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson May Join the Marvel Cinematic Universe
- In ‘Jumanji: The Next Level’ Trailer ‘The Rock’ Is Finally Danny DeVito
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