If, like us, you’re a big fan of Dwayne Johnson, prepare to get a dopamine-fuelled boot of joy straight to the ass of your brain, as we bring two pieces of Rock-related news. First is word that The Rock is now confirmed to play **Hercules for Brett Ratner’s graphic novel adaptation and secondly, he’s locked in for the lead of Joe and Anthony Russo’s action thriller Ciudad.
The Russo brothers have been working on the latter for a while now. It was first announced back in 2008 when we reported that they were crafting the story as an Oni Press graphic novel with Andrew Parks, before adapting it for the screen.
It’s taken a little longer than they figured for the book to arrive (it’s currently still labelled as “upcoming"), but now the movie is also on track with Emmett/Furla Films, producers of one of Johnson’s other likely new films, Empire State. That one finds The Rock in the offices of this very magazine for a webchat when danger threatens and... Okay, it doesn’t. But we can dream, can’t we?
As you might be able to guess (depending on how hard you studied geography), Ciudad is set in Paraguay’s Ciudad del Este, one of the most dangerous and corrupt cities in the world (or, as the tourism board would have it “ripe for original adventures and monetary opportunities”). Johnson will play a mercenary hostage retrieval expert who is called in to rescue a the kidnapped daughter of a Brazilian drug lord.
“Exploring genre has always been a driving motivation for us as filmmakers,” the Russos said in a statement that hit Deadline’s sensors. “This movie is the culmination of a long time ambition to bring our sensibilities to an action thriller.”
The film will mark their return to the big screen after 2006’s less than satisfying Y****ou, Me And Dupree. Since then, however, they’ve working hard on keeping their CV filled with decent comedy, producing and directing on the likes of Community and Happy Endings. And let’s not forget that they were a key part of making Arrested Development work. It’ll be interesting to see them let loose on a trigger-happy thriller.