LOS ANGELES (REUTERS) — The Rock, tread softly? No way. No how!
Treading softly is not the way of professional wrestling’s “People’s Champion.” It did not lead to his pinning of Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania X8. The Rock’s signature move “The People’s Elbow” did.
Tread softly? Yeah, right. Unless, that is, The Rock enters a new arena like Hollywood, as he does Friday when his action movie “The Scorpion King” lands in theaters looking to put a wrestling smackdown on movieland’s aging list of action stars.
The film business is looking for a new, bigger-than-life action hero to replace “Rambo” Sly Stallone and “Terminator” Arnold Schwarzenegger. The 6-foot 5-inch, 275-pound, The Rock, — a.k.a. 29-year-old Dwayne Douglas Johnson — is the top star of professional wrestling, the No. 1 pick in a recent draft by the World Wrestling Federation, whose television shows are seen weekly by 20 million fans.
But he wants more — he wants to be Hollywood’s new action king. The Rock has the brawn for action-star status and, seemingly, the brain to match.
“I knew I wanted to transcend into film, and I knew I wanted to take my time,” The Rock told Reuters in an interview. “I wanted to take one step at a time and tread softly. Make major decisions, but in a calculated way.”
In 1999, when The Rock cemented his reputation as pro wrestling’s People’s Champion, the former college football player easily could have beaten down the door to any movie studio chief’s office.
In fact, it was the other way around: they were throwing offers at him, the one with the massive torso, tough-guy image, well-trimmed dark hair and bright white smile.
He declined those offers, until a small role as an ancient Egyptian king, half man, half scorpion, arose in 2001’s “The Mummy Returns.” The movie was a sequel to a blockbuster, had broad audience appeal and ended up muscling past the original “Mummy’s” box office with a $418 million worldwide tally of its own.
RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
The Rock admits he didn’t have to do or say much in “Mummy Returns,” except look good, fight well and die proud.
“The first five minutes and last five minutes … is based on stopping me,” he said, knowing the entire time in between involved other characters. Yet, the half man, half scorpion lurks in the background. While the Scorpion King may not have appeared much, he was always in moviegoers’ minds.
“It was not too much and not too little, and I thought it would whet the appetite of my fans,” he said.
It did, and it now forms the basis for The Rock’s first leading role in “The Scorpion King,” which is set amid Egypt’s desert sands some 5,000 years ago.
The film shows how the Akkadian assassin Mathayus (The Rock) was hired to murder a villainous King Memnon. While he is the star, The Rock still doesn’t have to say too much — just look good, flex his muscles, get the girl and live by the credo of all Akkadian assassins: “Live free, die well.”
It’s the same model Schwarzenegger used in his first major movie success, 1982’s “Conan the Barbarian,” and Stallone wielded for a “Rocky” style comeback with 1986’s “Rambo.”
“I’ve been compared to those guys, which is very humbling,” he said. “I always say … I prefer to make my own way, make my own path.”
And if you can smell what The Rock is cooking — as his wrestling credo goes — it comes from a recipe for success.
THE PEOPLE’S ACTION HERO
“Scorpion King” opens with fights in which audiences see Mathayus’ prowess as an archer and stealth as a fighter.
Audiences learn that, with the aid of beautiful and sexy sorceress Cassandra (Kelly Hu), Memnon (Steven Brand) is battling Egypt’s tribal lords and murdering innocent victims.
Mathayus heads to Memnon’s palace in the sinful city of Gomorrah. There are some initial fights, and Mathyus is driven away. But he does not leave empty-handed, no way, no how. He has Cassandra on his camel.
The two head to the desert where they fight, then they return to Gomorrah and fight some more.
Needless to repeat, there is a lot of fighting to accompany a soundtrack of rock music from the likes of Creed and Nickelback.
Mathayus, too, must be bitten by a scorpion, which later helps transform him into the evil Scorpion King of “The Mummy” movies. And he’s no pure hero. He is an assassin, after all.
“It’s the reluctant hero that always appealed to me,” The Rock said. “As opposed to the guy who knows, ‘Hey, I am the hero. I am going to save the day.’ Well, I don’t want to save the day. I want to kill Memnon and save the day.”
Audiences shouldn’t expect Oscars for The Rock or “Scorpion King,” but they probably won’t care. They’ll probably yell and scream and cheer for more, like they have in early screenings in Los Angeles. But that’s what “Scorpion King” is all about.
“I wanted to give the people the action movie they would expect from me, then inject a Jackie Chan-esqe fighting style and create a new action hero,” said The Rock, referring to the comical martial-arts expert and movie star, Chan.
The California native likes to say he doesn’t do anything half way, and he is fond of using a baseball analogy to explain it: “When I take a swing, I swing for the fences. I want to go all out. I want to do a great job. I want to make an impact.”
But with “Scorpion King,” he adds a plot twist: “If I hit a home run, that’s great. If I hit a fly ball, that’s great too. But at least,” he said, “I’m swinging for the fences.”
In other words, The Rock’s hopes are high, but his expectations are reasonable. He is carrying a big stick to the movie theater box offices, but treading softly as takes his first trip to the plate.
