I have been looking forward to the cinematic adaptation of the RAMPAGE video game series ever since it was first announced, despite the fact that there was always a chance it could be super goofy. It stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, but as cool as he is, he does have a predilection for doing more family friendly fare than many of the action stars that preceded him. It's going to be directed by Brad Peyton, who did direct the recently released horror movie INCARNATE, but before he teamed up with Johnson on the disaster movie SAN ANDREAS (which I didn't like very much), his first two movies were CATS & DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE and JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. So while the promise of getting to see The Rock take on kaiju is enough to get me excited to see the film, it's a film that could conceivably turn out to be silly and aimed at little kids.
During an interview with We Got This Covered, Peyton assured that won't be the case. In fact, he said that this adaptation will be "more emotional, a lot scarier, and a lot more real than you'd expect". I like the sound of that.
Peyton's full quote on the subject:
With Rampage, we are using our love of the original game as our inspiration. Then we’re going to build a movie, like San Andreas, that is really going to surprise people in what it delivers. It’s going to be a lot more emotional, a lot scarier and a lot more real than you’d expect. So you look at that original concept about a lab that affects these animals and makes them rampage, and that’s the nugget. If they called me tomorrow to do Call of Duty, I wouldn’t want to play any of the Call of Duty games. I’d have to come up with something that deserves to be its own thing. That’s where a lot of these movies can go wrong.
I’m really excited about Rampage. It’s a monster film, so the stuff that I did on Incarnate, stretching my muscles in the horror space helped. This “small, character piece” with horror in it trained me to get ready for [Rampage]. Obviously, it’s a much bigger movie and it’s meant for a broader audience, but there still horror elements, there’s still a monster movie at the core. And I get to work with Dwayne [Johnson] again, I’m so excited about it."
The RAMPAGE game centers on
three giant monsters that destroy cities and national monuments.
Peyton confirmed that those three monsters from the game, "the lizard, the ape, and the wolf", will be making it to the big screen when RAMPAGE is released on April 20, 2018.
SAN ANDREAS co-star Alexandra Daddario