Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s is facing a new onslaught of allegations that he’s an ego-driven star who’s difficult to work with, with a report describing how the muscle-bound former pro wrestler is often hours late to movie sets and fan events and needs to exercise “control” over others around him.
via: Business Insider
Johnson rose to stardom as a WWE wrestler in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but became a household name once he jumped from the ring to the silver screen as an actor. Johnson's reliable star power grew as he made crowd-pleasing movies including "Walking Tall," "Get Smart," and "Fast Five."
Because Johnson is a wrestler-turned-actor, there's a general sense that he has worked hard to make it in Hollywood. And audiences have consistently turned up to see him in each "Fast and Furious" movie, as well as the "Jumanji" franchise.
But that solid reputation started to sour in the last two years, largely after his attempts to reshape the DC Extended Universe failed when 2022's "Black Adam" didn't impress fans and failed to ignite the box office.
When DC Studios announced a new rebooted universe a few months later, Johnson's antihero wasn't included.
On Tuesday, entertainment news outlet TheWrap reported that Johnson was up to eight hours late to set when filming the upcoming Christmas-themed action movie "Red One," meaning the crew had to shoot around him on some occasions.
The outlet also reported that the "Red One" budget has swollen past $250 million as a result of several production issues, including Johnson's lateness.
Although Amazon MGM Studios did not clarify the film's budget for the report, a source close to the studio told The Wrap: "It is completely normal for there to be budget fluctuations within 15% of the target, which is exactly what we experienced."
It also reported that he tried to save time on other sets by peeing in Voss water bottles, which upset some crew members.
Another anonymous source that TheWrap said knows the actor well said: "On set, away from his trailer, if he needs to pee, he doesn't go to the public bathroom. He pees in a Voss water bottle and his team or a PA has to dispose of it."
It's not the first time that his water bottle method has been mentioned. When speaking to Esquire ahead of 2021's "Red Notice," Johnson admitted that he pees in water bottles during his lengthy workouts because the gyms he goes to don't have bathrooms.
"I usually stay pretty hydrated. I need to go to the bathroom a lot," Johnson said. "Not a lot, but probably a couple of times during a workout I have to go to the bathroom. So I break out the bottle."
In a statement to TheWrap, a spokesperson for Amazon MGM Studios said: "Dwayne Johnson and Seven Bucks have been incredible partners on 'Red One'—a film that audiences of all ages are going to love this holiday season. Our testing has been very strong — the reaction from CinemaCon speaks for itself — and we couldn't have made it without Dwayne's constant work and support," the spokesperson said. "Any reporting that implies that we got to this point with him showing up seven-eight hours late to set is both ridiculous and false."
Representatives for Johnson and Amazon MGM Studios did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
As someone who is a fan of DJ as an action star, hearing this story is quite disappointing, especially when it wasn't that long ago that he called out Vin Diesel and some of the Fast & Furious cast for being "unprofessional candy asses."
The article also doesn't mention that while working on Red Notice, his co-star Ryan Reynolds got tired of DJ's tardiness that he actually confronted him about consistently being late. After their conversation, reports state that Dwayne was no longer late while shooting the film.
For someone in his fifties you shouldn't have to tell a grown man to show up on time to work. Hopefully this report will be a wake-up call or else DJ's time in Hollywood as a bankable movie star could be winding down.
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