Dwayne Johnson Vows to Bring ‘Bad Assery’ to DC in 2014

By  · Published on January 2nd, 2014

In a move that makes so much sense that it’s kind of absurd it hasn’t already happened before, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is partnering up with DC Comics for an undisclosed project in 2014. Well, to be more specific, they’re “partnering up to create the cool bad assery,” as he announced on Twitter to his followers on New Year’s Eve. Whatever “bad assery” could entail has yet to be explained, but we have Johnson’s semi-regular #RockTalk sessions and that one intrepid Twitter follower to thank for asking questions.

The year has just begun, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t start thinking about what went on during that meeting with the Warner Bros CEO. It’s certainly not the first time that he’s had his name attached to DC Comics projects, so maybe this time the promise/threat of bad assery will stick. All the way back in 2007, Johnson was tagged to play Black Adam, the sometimes villain, sometimes anti-hero hailing from Ancient Khandaq, in the Shazam movie that never came to light.

In 2012, Johnson dumped the news that he could be playing Lobo, the alien mercenary-slash-biker-slash-bounty hunter in a standalone film, and then possibly in the Justice League movie that people love to speculate happening, despite there not being any concrete evidence of it starting production anytime soon. The standalone Lobo film fell the way of the Shazam project, giving Johnson more false hope at becoming a DC action god, but let’s get those rumor mills grinding again – the vagueness of his tweet could indicate that one of his previous character deals could be back on the table, in addition to the entire DC universe of available heroes and villains to portray.

As DC aims to expand their universe in a Marvel-esque fit of media domination, that Justice League film doesn’t seem too far off any longer – and Johnson’s involvement seems more and more likely, too. But first things first. The only DC movie slated to shoot in 2014 is Batman vs. Superman, and as the film continues to add new heroes to its fold, another recognizable character or two wouldn’t be all that surprising.

In interviews during Man of Steel, Henry Cavill made references to S.T.A.R. Labs — meaning that Cyborg (a man mutilated in an experiment and outfitted with metallic implants and bionic limbs) is a large and looming possibility in Batman vs. Superman and the grander DC universe; if Cavill is mentioning the character in passing during interviews, it’s likely that the hero (and founding member of The Justice League) will make an entrance at some point – can you smell what The Rock’s cooking in his experimental laboratory?

There’s a multitude of other characters (including villains) that Johnson could portray in the film, but it seems like Cyborg would open the door to building that long-desired Justice League film that the world has been chasing. Then again, maybe 2014 is the year that he finally gets Lobo off the ground, or Black Adam back into the game. Right now, we’ll just have to make due with bad assery, a list of DC characters and obsessive speculation. It’s pretty impressive that we have our first superhero news this early in the year, though, isn’t it?

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