Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | October 3, 2025
I'm so friggin exhausted, and will be working three jobs today. But, dammit, I'm still going to see The Smashing Machine at 10 PM tonight. I'd rather not be out so late, and there's a chance I won't be in my bed until 2 AM, only to be up by around eight tomorrow to coach my kids' tee-ball team. However, if I don't go after I finish bartending tonight, I likely won't get another chance for a couple of weeks. These are, relatively speaking, champagne problems, and nothing I wouldn't deal with to see Dwayne Johnson actually stretch his talents.
I've been a fan of the man formerly known as The Rock for decades. My fandom began because of his pro-wrestling prowess, but continued as he ventured into action-movie stardom. The Scorpion King was the first film I ever saw in a theater without my parents. Despite the film's shortcomings, I was hanging out with a friend, seeing a movie that we wouldn't have been able to see on our own a year prior, and it featured The Rock. I remember the afternoon vividly.
Dwayne Johnson has always been a stellar actor, and I knew it even then. So, his movie-making decisions over the last decade have significantly bummed me out. His roles became more dependent on shirt pockets than acting. Even the action movies, which I had a low bar for, were forgettable at best (though Skyscraper is unfortunately burned into my brain). Ole Dwayne got so averse to risk that he was doling out crap regularly. Then, two very public failures sent him in another direction.
I'm sure the Black Adam star may say differently in public, but his attempt at taking over the DCU was an embarrassing failure. It also happened out in the open. Then, to make matters worse, the man had to capitulate to Vin Diesel of all people, by appearing in a credits scene in Fast X, despite having a very public beef with the film's lead. Diesel won. The Rock will return to the Fast & Furious franchise, if it ever comes back (Vin Diesel had some pretty serious accusations levied against him, which are still ongoing, and the newest and final film in the series has been delayed).
In the interim, Dwayne Johnson kept moving. He returned to pro-wrestling, only to be rejected by fans, spun that rejection into gold, and then basically abandoned the company in the middle of a prominent storyline with John Cena. It all seemed to serve his pivot to more "serious" acting. That pivot included the announcement of a film he would be making with Emily Blunt about a Hawaiian mob boss. Martin Scorsese was announced as a producer, and the movie seemed like it was on the fast track to production, until it wasn't.
The movie was reportedly being pitched around Hollywood in February, and Disney was allegedly closing in on acquiring it in March. That seemingly did not happen. Now Blunt, who stars in The Smashing Machine with Johnson, is saying the movie is still in development. "We're developing it right now. It's a really astonishing story," she said at the premiere of her and Johnson's new film. "It's the last great American mob story, and I can't believe it hasn't been told yet. It's a terribly exciting role for [Johnson] to kind of dig into. So, it's being written, we're working on it. And that's the wonderful part, is building it."
Huh! Things take time to develop, and there's a good chance that a company is paying for the film to be written. They may want to wait to announce their involvement until it reaches the next steps. That said, it would make just as much sense to publicly claim a project like this if it has such names attached to it. It doesn't stop at Blunt, Johnson, and Scorsese. Leonardo DiCaprio is attached as a producer. And yet, no company has stepped up to claim this hot ticket.
It doesn't help that Johnson has already teased the next film he's working on, as has Scorsese, and it was not this one. Does that mean it won't happen? Not necessarily. Plenty of seemingly great ideas with excellent creative teams fall by the wayside in Hollywood. But, given how hot this project was when it was announced, and how everyone involved seems to be moving on to other things, it feels less and less likely.
