What is the next step up above "movie star"? That is where we need to classify Dwayne Johnson, who has come a long way since making his acting debut as his own father, Rocky Johnson, on That '70s Show before originating the role of The Scorpion King in his first movie, The Mummy Returns. He isn't just blowing up at the multiplex (even if some successes are not quite "enough"). He's capturing the explosion in a headlock, pile-driving it into the ground, cracking a joke as he does so, and then finishing us off with his trademark, 1,000-watt mega-smile. If we are lucky, he will even arch an eyebrow, just to remind us that this is The Rock's world. We're only renting space for a limited time.
Given his status, it should come as no surprise that there are numerous Dwayne Johnson movies heading to theaters in the near future -- hopefully including a fourth Jumanji movie -- all of which sound like they will keep the one-time wrestler and current big-screen phenom in the blockbuster business for years. While The Rock -- who has also been making waves on TIkTok -- recently told CNBC that he intends to condense his daily routine a bit, his schedule of movies is still pretty jam-packed. Thus, we have built this guide to keep track of all of the actor's upcoming films – including those that are still making their way through development and will require quite a lot of work before they are ready to hit theaters.
Red One (2023)
Currently appearing in the "TBD" section of our 2023 movies schedule is Red One, which actually has no connection to Johnson's 2021 Netflix movie, Red Notice (which does have a chance of spawning a follow-up or two). However, Deadline does describe it as an action-comedy that pairs the actor with a Marvel movie star (Chris Evans) and a couple of DC movie actors (Academy Award winner J.K. Simmons from Justice League and Lucy Liu from Shazam! Fury of the Gods).
Johnson (who plays Callum Drift in the movie) has shared some behind-the-scenes photos from the holiday-themed Amazon original thriller -- which just completed shooting in February -- on Instagram, including one set of images that see Simmons don a beard as Old St. Nick and another that teases the Christmas horror movie creature, Krampus, may appear. Also on the Red One cast are Kiernan Shipka, Nick Kroll, and Bonnie Hunt as Mrs. Claus. Johnson's Jumanji movies director Jake Kasdan is helming the project, which was penned by Chris Morgan (known for writing many of the Fast and Furious movies) from a story by Johnson’s producing partner, Hiram Garcia.
Moana (TBA)
We assure you that we have not mistakenly included Moana -- one of Dwayne Johnson's previous hits -- on a list of the actor's upcoming films. The actor is producing a live-action update of the animated film about a young Polynesian woman seeking to absolve her island of a terrible curse.
Johnson himself -- accompanied by his daughters -- announced that a reimagining of the Oscar-nominated 2016 movie was in development in a video shot on the beaches of Oahu. There is no confirmation at the moment if the actor is reprising the role of Maui, but we cannot imagine him letting anyone else play a role as personal to him as this.
San Andreas 2 (TBA)
In 2015, Johnson teamed up with Carla Gugino to rescue their very resilient onscreen daughter, played by Alexandra Daddario, in the aftermath of a devastating Los Angeles earthquake in San Andreas. After earning $473 million worldwide, a sequel was soon greenlit, but the last major update we heard was in late 2021.
Hiram Garcia then told ScreenRant they were “working hard” on cracking a new story (no pun intended). Daddario has also expressed interest in reprising her role, but the possibility of San Andreas 2 happening at all seems to rely on Johnson's availability, who is quite busy these days, as you can surely see.
Doc Savage (TBA)
The last we saw of writer and director Shane Black was in 2018 when he released The Predator. While his next feature project appears to be Play Dirty, with Robert Downey Jr., there is hope that he will soon get around to making his Doc Savage movie. Shortly after the news broke about this film based on the classic pulp magazine adventurer, The Rock teased a collaboration with Black that he would film in 2017.
While some rights issues have stopped the film from getting underway as quickly as Black and Johnson had hoped, the latter did confirm in early 2018 that they're still working on the project. However, it was announced in 2020, according to Deadline, that a Doc Savage TV series was in the works instead, making the future of this feature-length collaboration uncertain.
Big Trouble in Little China (TBA)
Back in 2015, Johnson confirmed plans to make a new version of Big Trouble in Little China, but not a remake as some had initially assumed. This one is promised to be a continuation of one of the best John Carpenter movies that won't feature Johnson as Kurt Russell's iconic protagonist: unlikely hero, Jack Burton.
The actor has been saying all the right things about respecting the source material and honoring the work of both Carpenter and Russell, though neither of those guys are totally cool with the idea of the film being revisited. The last we heard about the project was in mid-2021, when Hiram Garcia told Collider that, like the San Andreas sequel, they are still trying to figure out the proper way to continue the story of the original cult classic.
The King (TBA)
One of the coolest things about Johnson's career is the work that he has done to bring more attention to Samoan culture -- honoring his own roots and teaching audiences about a people who don't get a lot of focus in pop culture. Titles that stand out in this regard are the aforementioned Moana and 2019's Fast and Furious spin-off, Hobbs & Shaw. However, he will soon have the opportunity to bring a real piece of history to the big screen.
In 2018, The Rock made a deal to team up with directors Husain El-Minbawi and Academy Award winner Robert Zemeckis to make The King -- a biopic that will star Johnson as King Kamehameha and follow his mission in the late 18th century to unite the islands of Hawaii. This is the kind of project that we expect Johnson will work hard to get made, but exactly when he will have time to do it is currently unknown.
In addition to appearing as "The Rock" in the upcoming WWE 2K23 video game and the slight possibility of his Fast and Furious franchise return (according to ScreenRant), Johnson is also very busy from behind the camera, too, serving as a producer on all the titles you see above and several other projects that are currently in development. He is also backing a John Cena-led Robert Ludlum adaptation called The Janson Directive, a thriller starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II called Emergency Contact, a kung-fu movie based on the graphic novel Son of Shaolin, a documentary called Four Down, and Teddy and the Guardians of the Night -- which is based on a viral illustration of a stuffed animal defending a child from a vicious monster by software engineer Alex Panagopoulos. Be sure to check back here in the future for more updates and, in the words of Maui in Moana, you're welcome.
