Hollywood has made Dwayne Johnson into a heavily recognizable figure who in recent years developed a career starring in studio blockbusters. Now Johnson is taking his massive career into a very different kind of territory. As you can see below, Dwayne Johnson will be starring in the A24 movie The Smashing Machine as depicted by the movie’s new trailer.
Dwayne Johnson, who is otherwise quite recognizable in his other cinematic efforts, has transformed himself to take on the role of legendary MMA fighter Mark Kerr. Johnson will play a fictionalized version of Kerr and he even had various prosthetics and other changes made to his face to do so.
Here’s the official trailer for The Smashing Machine:
As mentioned, the trailer does an impressive job at illustrating how different Johnson looks compared to his usual roles. For an actor that’s usually associated with franchises like Fast & Furious, it’s certainly a big change, and many moviegoers will no doubt hope to continue seeing Johnson take such risks with his career.
For those unfamiliar with Kerr, he led an incredible life of his own by participating in numerous championship competitions. His success won him numerous awards and in 2002 he became the basis for a documentary titled The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr. Now, more than two decades later, he’ll become the basis for this new effort starring Dwayne Johnson as Kerr.
Benny Safdie both wrote and directed The Smashing Machine for A24. In addition to Johnson, the film also stars Emily Blunt, Lyndsey Gavin, Oleksandr Usyk, and Ryan Bader.
The Smashing Machine is scheduled to hit theaters later this year on October 3, 2025. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional updates regarding the highly-anticipated collaboration between star Dwayne Johnson, director Benny Safdie, and studio A24 as we have them.