“It Doesn’t Matter” recording artist Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has never been ashamed of his pro wrestling roots. (Well, there might be the occasional thing he might want to forget in 2018.) Even if he wasn’t free to light his own name on fire at this year’s WrestleMania, this spring still featured a signature maneuver from The Rock in front of a massive audience. Heck, you might have missed it as it was happening. Take note, candy asses.
Chatting with SyFy, the animation supervisor for Rampage confirmed that there’s a special nod to The Rock’s wrestling roots inside all the building smashing mayhem. In this case, it’s the massive damage-happy creatures of the action blockbuster laying the smackdown with a hero gorilla brutalizing a jumbo-sized lizard.
“As a nod to Dwayne in the final battle, George the gorilla has to attack Lizzie in the background as Dwayne’s character Davis is running by, and so as a bit of background action, we had George do the People’s Elbow to Lizzie,” animation supervisor Dave Clayton explained to SYFY WIRE. “Davis is running towards the Apache and Lizzie is really going to work on George. As Davis runs towards the camera and hops into that Apache and starts lighting up Lizzie [with its guns]. In that moment you see George in the background giving the elbow.”
The film, which has earned a tidy worldwide box office total that’s still growing, also had to navigate the complicated the relationship of adapting a video game with the appropriate onscreen love for the source material.
“We knew it had to be photo-real monsters crushing the city, but that’s fine, that’s sort of a day at the office here,” shared Clayton. “So we tried to put in our own little nods to the arcade game wherever we could. There’s an expression that Ralph does sometimes, so we said let’s sneak that into this show. Where George is in the background smashing that building, let’s have him reach in and pull out a guy just like he does in the game.”
And to think the original script nearly nixed this whole enterprise.
(Via SyFyWire)
