I’m not sure if you heard, but The Rock is making a big, badass video game movie. Well, at least I think he is. It's been 18 months since the wrestler-turned-movie star casually dropped that reveal during an interview, revealing he was working on an adaptation of a video game he has been playing for years, promising to do good by gamers. I love The Rock, but those words filled me with a fear that hasn't really subsided in the year and a half since I read them.
You'd think The Rock going radio silent about the project since making that announcement would have dissipated that fear, but no. If anything it has only made it worse. Now I'm worried the big, badass adaptation The Great One is working on is a series I love, and much like the Borderlands and Minecraft movies, it is stuck somewhere in the Hollywood equivalent of development hell.
My fears about The Rock's video game movie didn't begin to manifest until I really started thinking about what he might be working on. As soon as someone suggested he might be Shepard in a Mass Effect movie, my heart started to race, and not in a good way. Then the Kratos fan-casting began, and of course, wrestlers' names were thrown about willy-nilly. I don't want The Rock, or any other wrestler for that matter – barring maybe Dave Bautista – anywhere near The Nine Realms.
The good news on those two fronts is Mass Effect and God of War have been confirmed to be getting the TV treatment, and Rock definitely said his project is a movie. Also worth noting, The Rock said he has been playing this game for years. As much as I'd love to think Rock has spent as much time on the Normandy as I have, I don't think he's the type of person to go back and play a renegade run of the entire trilogy just because they can't bear to leave the games behind for good.
That might also rule out It Takes Two (thank goodness). A few months after his adaptation announcement, it was revealed The Rock's production company is working on the It Takes Two movie. As I write this, it dawns on me that could well be the project Rock was referencing, calling it big and badass and claiming he had been playing it for years simply because he didn't know anything about it at the time and wrongly assumed those generic comments would cover all bases. Perhaps he'll be playing a beefed-up version of the Book of Love.
-1.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=740&dpr=1.5)
Assuming The Rock was being genuine when he said it's something he has been playing for years, maybe the movie he was on about is the Minecraft one. Like the rest of us with young kids, I'm sure Rock has spent more time than he'd like helping his little ones build and break blocks. Announced the better part of a decade ago, the Minecraft movie's release date came and went, although apparently, it's still coming. The one thing we do know is Jason Momoa will be in it somehow. Perhaps The Rock was booted from the project and Momoa took his place and that's why he hasn't mentioned it since. Who do you think would make the better Steve?
Moving back to something I really hope it's not, it does feel like we are on an inevitable path that ends with Epic announcing a Fortnite movie. I have played Fortnite pretty consistently for the past five years, jumping into its big end-of-season events and trying to piece together its story as I go. Real emphasis on the ‘trying to’ there as it's a tangled web I lost track of a long time ago. This one really has nothing to do with The Rock, I just think a Fortnite movie is a bad idea. He's technically already in the game, but isn't everyone at this point?
All I really want is for The Rock, or anyone else connected to the project, to confirm the movie he teased 18 months ago is a Call of Duty one. That way, not only can I go back to not caring about CoD any more than my job demands, but I can stop worrying the future WWE Hall of Famer is coming to lay the SmackDown on a series near and dear to my heart.
Between The Rock's radio silence and the writers and actors strikes, we might never find out what this movie was going to be. Depending on how long these strikes go on, there's a very real chance projects like this one fall by the wayside. The Rock is no longer the most in-demand star in Hollywood. After hitching his wagon to the lame horse that was Black Adam, perhaps the strike will act as the perfect excuse for whatever studio is heading up this mysterious gaming movie to toss it on the scrap heap.