Prime Video
The Rock’s filmography has been tough sledding in recent years and his latest Christmas-themed project seems to be more of the same, as the film has a 36% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and is tracking to make a disappointing box office return in its opening weekend. Despite all this, however, The Rock’s brain was somehow able to put the film in the same sentence as Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
In a promotion for IMAX, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnsoon was detailing his experience watching Oppenheimer is the exact theater and seat that Christopher Nolan — famed for his use of IMAX cameras — screens his movies in.
While watching the Best Picture-winning film — undoubtedly one of the best movies of the decade — Johnson had an epiphany: the technology used to shoot Oppenheimer will do wonders for Red One (which has since been savaged for its terrible CGI)!
“I was midway through shooting ‘Red One’ and I had an opportunity to see Oppenheimer. I watched in the Imax theater where Christopher Nolan watches and screens his movies. Him and Emma [Thomas], his wife. I even asked to let me sit where Chris sits. They said, ‘Chris sits here,’” The Rock explained.
“I watch Oppenheimer. It was amazing, but I was thinking: ‘Holy s—. Red One on this screen and with this technology could be game over.’ I remember texting [director Jake Kasdan] a picture of my bare chest and a picture of the screen and we realized how cool [IMAX] would be.”
— 💽 heather (@C05M1C57R4N63R) November 13, 2024
“Honestly laugh if you want but I aspire to have a fragment of this delusional confidence The Rock has,” one viral response to Johnson’s anecdote said.
“Kudos to Christopher Nolan for inspiring The Rock to make his own giant bomb,” joked another movie fan.
“The Rock is approaching LeBron level liar,” another person weighed in.
Red One, which will hit theaters on Friday, November 15, is projected to make around $30 million in its opening weekend, which is a bad sign for a movie that reportedly cost $250 million to make. Alongside The Rock, Red One also stars Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, J.K. Simmons, Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt, Kristofer Hivju, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, and more.