Dwayne Johnson and Rawson Marshall Thurber on 'Skyscraper' and the state of Hollywood
LOS ANGELES - Throughout his movie career, Dwayne Johnson has squared off against all manner of threats, from giant monsters to ancient armies to earthquakes, firmly establishing himself as the king of the action-movie hill with more than $9.4 billion in global box-office grosses to his name.
Now, with his latest film, Johnson is going up against one of the most powerful forces Hollywood can throw at him: sequelitis.
Out of eight movies that the major studios will release in July, only one is not either a sequel or an outgrowth of an existing property: Johnson's "Skyscraper," the rare big-budget tentpole based on original material in this entire franchise-saturated summer.
"Skyscraper," which hits theaters Friday, stars Johnson as a former FBI agent and amputee named Will Sawyer who is hired as the head of security at the world's tallest building, a Hong Kong tower called the Pearl. When the high-tech skyscraper comes under attack by a criminal syndicate, Sawyer must save his family before a raging fire consumes the building.
If that plot description gives you flashbacks to "Die Hard," that's no accident. From the start, writer and director Rawson Marshall
