There are currently two major video game movies in production at the moment, with Alicia Vikander taking on the iconic Lara Croft in Tomb Raider and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson battling giant monsters in the adaptation of classic arcade game Rampage. While we’ve heard about the impressive cast the latter has amassed – including Academy award nominee Naomie Harris – details had been kept under wraps.
But a some new details have emerged from Splash Report, who have a pretty in-depth outline of the movie.
“The first privately owned space station is destroyed by a mysterious experiment done onboard. Three canisters from the crash land on Earth. One lands in the gorilla enclosure at the San Diego Zoo, the other in the plains of Wyoming and the last one in the Florida Everglades. The Griffin Technologies Group, headed by two siblings (Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy), tries to destroy any evidence of wrongdoing before the government finds out. It’s too late because the canisters have infected a gorilla named George, a wolf in Wyoming and an alligator. They start evolving and growing exponentially. To cover their track, the Griffin idiots decided to unleash a beacon that will make all three large animals head toward one destination: their head office located in the Willis Tower in Chicago.
Johnson plays an ex-marine who’s now a primatologist that raised George at the San Diego Zoo. He taught the ape sign language, and they share a special bond. Naomie Harris (Moonlight) plays a fired Griffin Tech scientist who helps our protagonist in trying to stop Chicago from being destroyed by those humongous beasts.”
This is taking a slight departure from the arcade game – which saw humans are turned into giant monsters – and instead goes with a standard kaiju set-up. Johnson is re-teaming with his long collaborator Brad Peyton (San Andreas) to bring Rampage to the big screen, with a script written by Ryan Condal (Hercules) and Carlton Cuse (San Andreas). Ryan Eagle (Non-Stop) had written a previous draft in 2012, before Johnson and his team took over production in 2015.
Rampage is set for release on April 20th 2018, and is directed by Brad Peyton (San Andreas) with a cast that includes Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (Baywatch), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Walking Dead), Naomie Harris (Moonlight) Malin Akerman (The Final Girls), Joe Manganiello (The Batman) and Jake Lacy (Obvious Child).
Originally published April 25, 2017. Updated April 13, 2018.
