RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 3 sourcesComing off a string of box-office disappointments, Dwayne Johnson has become quite adept at responding to questions regarding why Black Adam , Smashing Machine , and Moana failed to inspire the same audience delight as whatever the last popular Dwayne Johnson movie was. While it’s hard to give him all the credit for his recent franchise hits, such as Jumanji , Fast & Furious , and Moana sequels, Red One (a box office bomb) and Red Notice were allegedly hits on streaming, so maybe the color “red” and the word “streaming” are the key to curing Johnson’s diminishing bankability. Johnson did answer People ‘s questions regarding the live-action Moana , which, much like Black Adam , changed the hierarchy of power in the live-action remake universe, and he’s unsurprisingly chill about the whole thing, namely because he thought it “really mattered” for Samoan representation. Making sure the film was authentically Polynesian, to Johnson, is “why the movie was made,” so his kids can “look at the big screen and go, ‘That’s us for the first time on a big screen. That’s us up there. How cool is that?'”
Johnson wasn’t ignoring the bad reviews, but they did catch them off guard. He recalls reading the first two responses, which were “amazing” and made Johnson be “like, wow.” (We hope those routinely and overly enthusiastic first-reaction tweets are proud of themselves.) Then “it went the other way,” which “sometimes happens.” Johnson says that he and his wife, Lauren Hashian, “had a lot of these conversations at home, at the kitchen island late at night when the babies are asleep,” about the film’s disappointing returns. But Johnson, ever the optimist, remembers “what’s going to be beyond this opening weekend,” and, also, he’s got a new Jumanji movie, which will probably, hopefully, break the actor out of his slump.
To his credit, Johnson really doesn’t ignore his failures. When Smashing Machine crashed out last fall, he posted about it on Instagram . “In our storytelling world, you can’t control box office results — but what I realized you can control is your performance, and your commitment to completely disappear and go elsewhere. And I will always run to that opportunity.”
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