The Rock is playing a primatologist with an albino gorilla for a best friend in the film adaptation of the ’80s video game Rampage, and you can re-read that sentence as many times as you please; it just keeps getting better every time. Johnson has been sharing updates about the start of production via his Instagram, and the newest reveal punched into the sides of our buildings is this first look at him with his albino gorilla friend George, as a cake decoration in the picture above. Yep. That’s The Rock with an albino gorilla all right. I’ll be damned.
With monster movies making a big comeback, along with the recent trend of studios buying the rights to literally any nostalgic toy or game, — from Battleship and Rubik’s Cubes and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots to any number of old arcade games (I mean, even Missile Command) — it was only a matter of time before Rampage became an obvious IP to tap. (Oh yeah, tap that sweet IP.)
Luckily, New Line is diverging from the sci-fi, barely-there plot of the arcade game, so Fresno won’t have any buildings punched in by a human-animal hybrid (at least not in the movie). Here’s the synopsis, which explains how they’ve tried to make the plot work as a modern day action film starring The Rock:
Primatologist Davis Okoye (Johnson), a man who keeps people at a distance, shares an unshakable bond with George, the extraordinarily intelligent, silverback gorilla who has been in his care since birth. But a rogue genetic experiment gone awry transforms this gentle ape into a raging monster. To make matters worse, it’s soon discovered there are other similarly altered alpha predators. As these newly created monsters tear across North America, destroying everything in their path, Okoye teams with a discredited genetic engineer to secure an antidote, fighting his way through an ever-changing battlefield, not only to halt a global catastrophe but to save the fearsome creature that was once his friend.
While these monsters tear across North America, will we learn the name of several cities in California? Because that’s what I remember from the video game. That and “don’t eat a toaster.” Very educational.
Rampage also stars Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. New Line plans to release it on April 20th, 2018.
(Via Coming Soon and Collider)
