The Rock and The Loss of 50 Million Dollars: Red One, an upcoming American film based on action, adventure, thriller and comedy which is directed by Jake Kasdan and written by Chris Morgan is carrying a lot of behind-the-scenes stories for its delay in release. The film is inspired by a story written by Hiram Garcia. The main cast of the film includes Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, Kiernan Shipka, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Nick Kroll, J.K. Simmons and Kristofer Hiyju.
This film has been produced by Johnson, Kasdan, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia, Melvin Mar and Morgan. If you talk about ‘The Rock’ i.e. Dwayne Johnson, then in the past two years he has been known for his hard-working nature and musclebound action-comedy films which of great potential of attracting box office collections upon release. But his recent work, the ‘Red One’, which is a high-powered action-comedy film that was expected to be a Christmas crowd-pleaser seems to turn around as a massive misadventure due to its ongoing budget issues which show The Rock’s fame and work style with a different angle which might not look pleasurable.
The film ‘Red One’, is based on a Christmas theme where a villain kidnaps Santa Claus from the North Pole upon which an E.L.F. (Extremely Large and Formidable) joins the force with a bounty hunter to find and save Santa which will eventually save their Christmas. Earlier it was announced that this film would be coming on the big screen during the 2023 Christmas season but later it was updated that due to some delay, the release has been postponed to November 2024, which is a year later, giving last year’s labour strike as a reason for it.
But the behind the scene stories seem different and a lot messier. During an interview with the production crew, it was mentioned that Johnson shows a lack of professionalism on set and often appears late which makes the cast and crew wait. Even the producers were on the line due to having less experience. Co-starring actors like Chris Evans and J.K. Simmons have also added up to the final budget which eventually went over $250 million, which is much higher than the previous planned budget for the film.
If we believe what more than a dozen crew members have to say then directly it depicts that the “Red One” production was packaged full of problems which further added up due to the inexperience of the film’s lead producer Hiram Garcia of Seven Bucks Productions and Amazon MGM feature. They have even mentioned that Johnson used to show up as much as 7-8 hrs late for the set. And that’s not it, in his previous films, Dwayne has made a habit of urinating in a water bottle to save time, upsetting crew members because at the end, it’s them who need to clean that for him.
Amazon MGM took the unusual step at its very first CinemaCon this year, by premiering footage from the film to a small group of journalists who were not allowed to write about what they saw. It was a 10-mins clip that was shown to them to get their reaction about it. But there is a different story about what the Amazon MGM spokesperson has to say to the media regarding the ‘Red One’.
In a statement, the spokesperson denied that there were any on-set issues with or delays caused by Johnson or Seven Bucks’ inexperience which caused the film budget to balloon.
According to him, Dwayne Johnson and Seven Bucks Productions have been incredible partners on the set of ‘Red One’. He even mentioned that this film is going to receive tremendous love from audiences of all ages. He even added that they are positive about its release due to the reaction received from CinemaCon upon showing some clips to them and have a very strong feeling for its success and it was impossible to make it without Dwayne’s constant hard work and support.
He straight away denied the claim for Johnson showing up 7-8 hrs late to set and said these claims were ridiculous and false. Although the statements given by the insiders are in complete contrast. One of them even said that the only thing Dwayne was consistent at was being late on the set. And no doubt that these claims can be true as he even showed up late to his fan events leaving entire sets and crew idle while he was busy doing his 3 hrs of workouts. If we talk about his recent match at WrestleMania 40, then he was even 3- hrs late there which eventually ended up with crowd booing him.
Coming back to the on-set stories of Johnson being late then it is said that he was late an average of 7-8 hrs daily and missed several entire days of production, which increased the production cost of the film by at least $50 million. The inside who gave these details has requested to hide his identity due to the fear of losing his job with the production. One spokesperson who is close to the Amazon MGM mentioned that the budget never crossed too far than $250 million and it is completely normal to have a budget fluctuation of 15% which is exactly what we experienced, hence there is no need to react.
Earlier, the production start dates of the film “Red One” were postponed twice due to Dwayne’s commitments to the “Young Rock” series, the XFL’s relaunch and the extensive “Black Adam” press tour, which he hoped would position him as a major player in the DC Comics/Warner Bros. universe. After all this, the production of the film was resumed in November 2022.
Before all these headlines came to light, Johnson’s behaviour had also created a gap between him and the famous Vin Diesel. Vin had problems with The Rock because of the same reason that he kept showing up late for production during their work together on the film series – “Fast & Furious”. Sometimes he didn’t show up at all, which left the co-star upset.
Even during one of the 2020 Netflix production titles “Red Notice,” Ryan Reynolds was so upset after waiting for 5-hrs for Dwayne that led to a huge fight between them which made Johnson storm off the set. The two stars didn’t speak for years until they patched up this thing recently.
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Also, this has come to our light that apart from his disregard towards the shooting schedule, he even upsets his crew members with his odd behaviour and personal demands. The Voss urine bottle first made its appearance on an Instagram story in 2017 which made its way to a magazine story as well. Adding up to all these, some even claim that the Rock is using the budget from the ‘Red One; film to his own production and for shooting promotional material for his liquor brand.
These are only a few claims that the insiders have made regarding the ballooning budget of the film but it reflect the true nature of the famous actor Dwayne Johnson and his behaviour and seriousness towards the production.
