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Hollywood entertainment outlet The Wrap took aim at Dwayne Johnson today, citing that issues with his lateness and overall inexperience from his production company have pushed his Amazon MGM holiday film Red One, slated to come out this November, to a budget of upwards of $250 million.
The report cites, among other claims:
-"According to more than a dozen insiders directly involved in the project, the “Red One” production was a perfect storm of problems compounded by the inexperience of the film’s lead producer Hiram Garcia and Amazon MGM feature and production executives Julie Rapaport and Glenn Gainor, who are overseeing the project."
-"Johnson showed up as much as eight hours late to set on the movie — forcing the crew to shoot around him on some days. On previous films, Johnson has made a habit of peeing in a water bottle to save time, upsetting crew members."
-"Johnson was late an average of seven to eight hours per day and missed several entire days of production, ballooning costs by at least $50 million according to three insiders who insisted on anonymity for fear of being fired."
-"At its first-ever CinemaCon this year, Amazon MGM took the unusual step of premiering footage from the film to a small group of journalists handpicked by Johnson’s publicist, Meredith O’Sullivan. The journalists were shown about 10 minutes of footage, but not allowed to write about what they saw."
-"Johnson, who advocates for himself as “the hardest worker in the room,” has developed a reputation in the industry for his lateness and lack of professionalism on set, according to multiple insiders who spoke to TheWrap. "
-"The reasons behind Johnson’s perpetual lateness seem to stem from his refusal to work a full shooting day, despite factoring in his three-hour daily workout routine. “It’s his absolute refusal to work more than a four-or five-hour day,” a studio insider added. Another insider suggested, “It’s a control thing.”
-"According to two insiders, the team from Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions tacked on an entire XFL promotional shoot that added two days after the “Red Notice” marketing shoot."
Amazon responded to The Wrap with the following statement:
"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,” the spokesperson said. “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. 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.”
The article also cited that Rock was extremely late for an appearance at WWE World in Philadelphia Wrestlemania weekend (which did happen) and was also late to Wrestlemania 40. WWE's Chris Legentill denied Rock was late for Mania, stating he was there hours before the event to take part in a rehearsal. The article cited sources as stating Rock was late to the World appearance due to another engagement across Philadelphia and Philly traffic.
The article also takes aim at Hiram Garcia, The Rock's brother-in-law for being positioned as Lead Producer on the film while allegedly not being experienced enough to handle the position and goes into other alleged issues on other projects, including Johnson allegedly violating COVID-19 protocols on the set of Netflix's Red Notice. It is pretty obvious the article was done with the intention of trying to take Johnson down a peg.
You can read the complete piece at this link.
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