The Rock imo has always been one of the actors that are actually pretty good but they just don’t make great choices with roles.
Agreed but post Black Adam and Red One failing.. it seems he's gonna be picky with the roles and directors he's working with, Benny Safdie, Martin Scorsese and Darren Aronofsky.. I read on the GQ feature that he admitted before filming for The Smashing Machine began that he was legit scared and had serious doubts he could pull this role off so whatever fears he had.. Benny Safdie must of made him worked his ass of acting wise for those fears go away because he's gonna be working with Scorsese on that Hawaiian crime epic film and reteaming with a24 on a film called Breakthrough which plays a motivational guru like a fucked up twisted version of Tony Robbins directed by Darren Aronofsky and he's not the lead, it's a supporting role so he's taking this next phase of his career seriously
It was confirmed the movie is shot on 16mm IMAX in the comments section underneath Benny Safdie's post
It is really rich for him to act like he was pigeonholed by the studios and not that he was chasing every dollar he could. Every mid-level indie filmmaker, whether it is the Safdies or Noah Baumbach or whoever else, would love for a movie star to take scale to be in their movie. It is going to massively increase the possible budget and the initial release strategy. I would go so far to say that it is a duty of movie starts to do them at least once every few years.
I am happy for DJ getting all the praise he's getting out of Venice, the film it's getting it's North American premiere at TIFF and if critics and fans give the movie but in particular his performance in it rave reviews.. then he's definitely in the awards conversation
The co-host of The Big Picture Podcast said this is closer to being a spiritual sequel to “The Curse,” which is not what the ads suggest at all.