What with his starring roles in The Game Plan and the upcoming Race To Witch Mountain, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is Disney’s golden boy at the moment. Yes, even more so than that mouse fella.
And the studio has further confirmed his status by tapping the former wrestler to star in an epic and currently untitled sci-fi action adventure.
And get this – following the studio’s immense success with the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy, which was of course based on one of Disneyland’s most famous attractions, Disney might be about to go one better by basing the new movie not just on one ride, but on an entire section of their theme park.
The section in question is Tomorrowland, which plays home to a host of sci-fi-themed attractions, including Space Mountain – however, Disney is denying, for now, that this is the case, or that the film in question will be called Tomorrowland. Maybe they’re just being cautious, or maybe they remember how The Haunted Mansion turned out. Either way, they’re calling this project an original script.
And writing that original script is the team of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore to specifically tailor an epic action adventure set in space for Rock ‘The Son’ Johndwayne, who has reinvented himself of late as a fine light comedian (and his action chops, of course, go without saying). And we say that it couldn’t happen to a nicer fella.
Lucas and Moore have proved their versatility of late by writing both the rom-com, The Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past for Mark Waters, and Todd Phillips’ latest R-rated com-blast, The Hangover. Should be interesting to see how they handle family fare.
Mayhem Pictures’ partners, Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray, who produced The Game Plan, will oversee this as well.
What do you think, readers – if this is based on an entire section of Disneyland, will it make for a good film? Will Lucas and Moore have to squeeze concession stands and toilet blocks into the plot somehow? And, given how Pirates turned out, is scoffing at this idea really the wisest default setting?
Oh, and that reminds us of a joke that we just made up: Did you hear about the plane that was remodelled as a Scottish theme park? Yeah, it flies pretty well but it Disneyland.
Here all week!