The Wrap published a damning piece on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on Tuesday that accused the movie star and UFL co-owner of various violations, bad behavior, and shady practices.
In the article, written by Umberto Gonzalez, various sources and insiders accuse Johnson of “chronic lateness and lack of professionalism” that has caused the budget for his next film, “Red One,” to balloon to $250 million. The article goes on to provide sources on other films and productions that tell similar stories of Johnson’s lack of care for crews and their time.
Other sources claim that, rather than use a public restroom, Johnson would often pee in a bottle and give it to a production assistant or other member of his team to dispose of, a claim that other sources denied.
Specific to his role as a co-owner of the XFL, which later merged with the USFL to become the UFL, Johnson was accused by multiple insiders of using film crews working on Netflix’s Red Notice to film a promotional shoot for the spring football league that ended up adding two days to the production, not to mention extra costs.
An insider added that the marketing shoot for “Red Notice” was “probably footing the bill for him to shoot promo material for the XFL and Teremana,” Johnson’s liquor brand.
A second insider confirmed the report and added: “This would happen all the time and he would tack on these shoots and have the production company that was hired by the studio stay late, shoot it and deliver footage.”
A person close to Seven Bucks denied that any “Red One” funds were diverted to Johnson’s personal production company. “If we had lights already set up for the production we would use those,” the person said. “But we never used movie budgets for those. We would bring in crew to do it.”
With any report like this, we’re always left to wonder how much of it is legit gripes and how much is vendettas or gamesmanship from aggrieved parties. However, there seem to be enough sources from various productions to warrant serious consideration of the claims.
Given his propensity for trying to control the narrative around his many endeavors, we have to imagine Johnson will have a response to the accusations at some point. No doubt, “cancel culture” will be included in that response.
[The Wrap]
