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Rampage’s Success Proves That Dwayne Johnson Can Sell Any Movie
It was a hot race for the #1 spot at the box office this weekend: would A Quiet Place, the horror phenomenon of the year, carry that incredible word of mouth through to a second week at number one, or would Rampage come out roaring? Under typical circumstances, it seems inconceivable that, in 2018, an adaptation of a video game featuring a giant gorilla as a central story point would have any real shot at box office success. Yet Rampage managed to be the most successful film of the weekend, grossing over $34.5m domestically despite mixed reviews. Once again, we bore witness to the indomitable power of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Rampage has already made over $148m worldwide from a $120m budget. For a film like this, with a release date set two weeks before the juggernaut of Avengers: Infinity War, those are some incredible numbers. They’re also par for the course with Johnson. Last year, to the surprise of basically everyone, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle became the 5th highest grossing film of 2017. With over $953m in the bank, it out-grossed Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok and Wonder Woman. This was the second film Johnson had on the top 10 highest grossing titles of the year, as The Fate of the Furious passed $1.2bn. While Baywatch didn’t set the domestic box office alight, it still took in $177m worldwide – turning a modest profit from its $69 million production budget.
Take a trip through Johnson’s filmography of the past five years and you’ll see the receipts of a bona fide movie-star. Johnson is a rarity in modern Hollywood: an actor whose name recognition is strong enough by itself to move audiences to the theaters. His induction into the Fast and Furious franchise coincides with its evolution into a worldwide box office phenomenon. 2015’s generic disaster movie San Andreas grossed $474m from a $110m budget. The 2016 comedy Central Intelligence was another hit, with a $217m gross, while his voice work in Moana helped that Disney film to soar past $643m worldwide. Dwayne Johnson is so good at this money-making thing that he managed get Hercules to break even.
We could spend the next few paragraphs extensively documenting his box office prowess, but the end message would be the same: Not only is Dwayne Johnson arguably the most bankable star in Hollywood, but he can now essentially sell just about any movie – whether he’s hanging out with a giant CGI gorilla, or wearing a cape made out of a lion.
While there are plenty of famous actors in Hollywood, movie stars in the old-fashioned sense of the word have become thin on the ground. Tom Cruise is frequently cited as one of the few actors left who can lend the golden touch to any movie he leads, but Johnson’s recent track record is arguably even stronger than Cruise’s – especially given how risky some of his chosen projects have been. So what is it about The Rock that people just can’t resist?
Johnson has spent the past 15+ years building up an extensive filmography following his time as a wrestler in the WWE. His debut in The Mummy Returns – for which he was rumored to have been paid $5.5m for around 15 minutes of screen-time – was coolly received, but he kept working and expanded his reach beyond mere action movies. He did comedies like Get Smart and Be Cool; he took the Arnie route and did some family films like Tooth Fairy and Race to Witch Mountain; he even tried his hand at some serious acting, although Southland Tales may not have been the best stage to demonstrate that on. Yet it’s only been in the past half-decade that Johnson has refined his model of stardom: Uber-macho action hero with almost mythic levels of skills and a complete willingness to play the fool. Johnson will punch down a building, drive a car into the jungle, then do a pratfall for good measure.
Johnson is especially popular with international audiences, which is where much of the true financial potential of cinema lies these days. This is and of itself is wonderful progress, given the oft-repeated assertion from industry insiders that non-white American stars don’t sell overseas (Johnson is of black and Polynesian ancestry). The Fast and Furious films, in particular, are immensely popular in countries like China.
That potent combination has made Johnson an ideal leading man for a particular brand of blockbuster. Amid the ever-expanding world of franchises and superhero movies, Johnson has carved out a niche that feels a lot like the kind of films his predecessors Schwarzenegger and Stallone would make in the 80s and 90s. Movies like Rampage, San Andreas and the Fast and Furious series are completely over-the-top in their approach to action, to the point where it’s almost fantastical. Outside of the latter, he tends to do either original blockbusters (or at least ones based on minor properties) and nostalgic favorites. They’re films that beg not to be taken seriously, and Johnson is impeccable at playing to those demands. He’s completely committed in the Fast and Furious movies, but always with a wink and a nod. It’s a skill that’s harder to pull off than he is given credit for. It’s the perfect meeting of star and product: Dwayne Johnson is perfect for the movies he picks, and they’re exactly the kind of stories audiences want to see him in.
JOHNSON IS ONE OF THE FEW TRUE MOVIE STARS
In the franchise age, the concept of the A-List star has less meaning than ever. No longer is it necessary to have big names listed at the top of your film in order for it to make its money at the box office. Chris Hemsworth’s name, for example, carries clout because of Thor, but it couldn’t help him make In The Heart of the Sea a hit. Now, it’s all about the intellectual property itself. Star power can still matter, but it’s of diminishing value in big-budget film-making. There are only a handful of exceptions to this rule, at least as it applies to the domestic box office: Melissa McCarthy can open a film based on her name alone, but she doesn’t tend to do 9-figure multiplex fodder. Dwayne Johnson does, and he has the power to bring in the grosses.
Next up for Johnson is Skyscraper (another action-blockbuster), an adaptation of Disneyland’s famous Jungle Cruise ride, and he’s also signed on to play Black Adam in the DC Extended Universe, bringing his star power to another major franchise. All three of these on their own sound like risky projects – an original big-budget action movie, a story based on a theme park ride, a minor comic book character unfamiliar to mainstream audiences – but under Johnson’s guidance, they feel like safe bets. Johnson is now able to shepherd projects to success through the sheer force of his name alone because audiences can’t get enough of what he has to offer. The success of Rampage may surprise some, but it cements what many of us have known for a long time now: Dwayne Johnson can make everything and anything a success. He is, quite simply, a star.
