Retro gaming fans will remember the 1986 arcade classic Rampage as an all-out monster brawl, where the player can take the form of George the gorilla, Lizzie the lizard or Ralph the werewolf and destroy cities. A film adaptation of the Rampage gaming franchise is now making its way down the pipeline, following in the footsteps of such recent games-turned movies as Warcraft, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter and Assassin’s Creed, among others.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, quite possibly the busiest A-list actor in Hollywood right now, is headlining the upcoming Rampage movie, along with Naomie Harris (Moonlight) and Joe Manganiello (Magic Mike) costarring. The involvement of The Rock tends to elevate any film to a more successful level these days, but Rampage also continues to assemble an impressive supporting cast for itself - one that now appears to have added a The Wolf of Wall Street and Horrible Bosses veteran to its ranks.
Tracking Board is reporting that P.J. Byrne is in talks to join the cast of Rampage. P.J. is just fresh coming off his role in the HBO limited TV series Big Little Lies and has been lending his voice as Firestorm in the cartoon network superhero series, Justice League Action. Byrne also appeared in HBO’s short-lived Vinyl TV series last year, reuniting him with Wolf of Wall Street screenwriter Terence Winter.
Byrne is reportedly playing a scientist in Rampage, who works closely with a gorilla that begins to act strangely at the wildlife park that he and Johnson’s character work at. This gorilla will presumably morph into a giant building-smashing beast at some point in the film. This certainly does go along with The Rock’s character details that we learned late last year. Director Brad Peyton (San Andreas) has explained that The Rock’s character is going to have a deep emotional connection with animals, but not so much with people. It looks like The Rock may end up being on the side of the giant “monsters” in the film.
Rampage is set to be not just a simple tribute to a classic video game, but will be a true monster movie that includes horror elements that will make it emotional and scary, beyond the audience expectation (in theory, anyway). The Rampage game had a fairly basic plot and there isn’t a lot of history to be utilized, so the film has a large gap to fill in that respect, story-wise.
Source: Tracking Board
- Rampage Release Date: 2018-04-13
