He’s got the live action remake of Moana in the works, but next year WWE legend Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s movie about a legendary mixed martial arts fighter will show his real acting chops, according to the athlete the tale is based on.
A teaser of The Smashing Machine was shown during the Cannes Film Festival in May and shocked fans seeing The Rock – who made his name as a WWE wrestler – with a full head of hair as Mark Kerr.
The now 55-year-old was an icon in the Ultimate Fighting Champion world but also had personal battles in love and with drugs, which he shared in a 2002 documentary, also called The Smashing Machine.
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Mark says: “Dwayne is so bankable in certain roles – he’s a superhero, special agent, this, that and the other, but for him to take on my biopic it is such a far departure on how people watch him on screen. This is why I give him a lot of kudos because a lot of actors keep doing the same thing – he’s got a lot of courage.
“One of the things I talked to him about is how through his whole entire career – like with me too – people try to put you in a box: ‘He can’t be more than that because he’s a big blockhead’. They label you because it makes it easier to control you or try to corner you where you can’t expand and grow.
“Dwayne said he didn’t make it in the NFL so instead he bought a football league and now he has his own production company. He’s willing to take the risks because he’s broken every stereotype you can have as an athlete and performer – and succeeded – so there’s no reason he won’t succeed with this movie.”
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In 2019 Dwayne, 52, got in touch with Mark to tell him he was interested in turning his story into a big-screen blockbuster following their first meeting while working out at Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach, Santa Monica, 23 years ago.
Mark says: “He watched my documentary and had a deep connection to it, reached out to me in November 2019 and said, ‘We’re going to do this film about your life. I can get stuff done now that I could never get done before, and this is a passion of mine’ Then, the pandemic happened.
“I don’t call or text him then this past October I reached out to Dwayne’s agent and finally we got on the phone and he’s like, ‘Good news, we’re going forward – we’re going to make the movie’.”
Actor Benny Safdie, who played Edward Teller in Oppenheimer – one of the boffins involved in the creation of the Atomic Bomb – bought the rights to produce Mark’s story on the big screen.
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Mark says: “I told Dwayne, ‘Benny Safdie was made to do this movie, A24 are the perfect studio to bring this thing to life and you, DJ, were born to play this role’.
“He’s got me by four inches – he’s a big f***in’ dude – he’s 6ft 4in and that build he has now is the build I had when I came into the UFC. We stayed on the phone for over an hour talking.
“It’s an incredible feeling. You have a person of his stature and talking to him –the dialogue we’ve had since then – shows he’s a genuine person.”
During his MMA career Mark was a two-time UFC heavyweight tournament champion, World Vale Tudo Championship tournament winner, a Pride FC heavyweight champion, 1992 NCAA national wrestling champion, 1994 national freestyle champion and four-time ADCC world submission champion.
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