“What a Hollywood legend”: the actor who inspired Dwayne Johnson’s “definitive” role
As he always does, Dwayne Johnson has given his media-savvy best to push his latest film, the live-action version of Disney’s Moana, but unfortunately, this time around, it’s not likely to work.
For whatever reason, whether it’s too soon after Moana 2, or because the film just looks exactly like the animated original, it hasn’t landed with audiences, and as a result, Disney is looking at a $100m loss and may even rethink its policy of making a live-action version of all of its franchises.
Not even the tried and tested route of manipulating mothers into buying cinema tickets by going on CBBC’s Bedtime Stories is going to get Johnson a hit this time around, so it might well be sensible for him to go back to doing what he does best, which is spectacular, quite violent action films in which he throws people around like rag dolls.
After all, ‘The Rock’ is a former wrestler, that’s how he got started, and so it makes complete sense that his modus operandi would be taking the lead in films that have lots of explosions, physical fights, other muscle-bound men with shaved heads and Jason Statham-esque storylines in which an ‘ordinary guy’ has to stop doing a mundane job to save the day or his family or both.
Johnson has been appearing in these kind of movies for a quarter of a century now, and he is well-known for putting the focus behind his success on the relentless upkeep of physical perfection; his body is a temple, his diet and gym routine legendary, getting up at 4am, six days of training a week, five to seven meals a day, endless helpings of chicken, steak and eggs. The man is a highly-paid sinew factory.
And he was evidently influenced by another legendary figure in the world of fitness who also transitioned to Hollywood, as he told the UFC back in 2014, when he had just made an action-adventure film in which he played a demigod two years before he did the same in the first Moana.
He revealed: “The man who always stood out most and inspired me when it came to Hercules was Steve Reeves. Dude was a stud and had the type of physique that was damn near flawless. He delivered a truly iconic Hercules character. He passed away in 2000. But, man, what a Hollywood legend.”
Reeves was a bodybuilder and former Mr America who became the highest-paid actor in Europe in the 1950s thanks to a series of successful ‘swords and sandals’ action epics. He made the original Hercules in 1958, a movie based on the Greek myths of the Argonauts and the quest for the Golden Fleece, and it was so successful a sequel was quickly produced the following year.
Johnson’s turn to step into the sandals came some 56 years later in Brett Ratner’s $100m update that co-starred Mission Impossible’s Rebecca Ferguson and Ian McShane, and in many ways, he felt it was the role he’d been waiting to play his entire career.
He added: “You know, when I first got into Hollywood about twelve, thirteen years ago, Hercules was one of the projects that I had actively looked at and looked for, cause when you think about (it), gosh what would I love to do? And our version of Hercules, we want to make the definitive version.”
The reboot was a success on release, making more than $140m profit, with Johnson’s performance and the action scenes receiving the most praise from critics. Disney, of course, have their own version of Hercules, the 1997 animated musical that has since been turned into a West End stage show.
That will also now be made into a live-action movie, with the Russo Brothers producing it once they’re done with Avengers: Doomsday and Guy Ritchie on board to direct.
