While he was celebrating the success of his recent film Rampage on Twitter, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson admitted that one of his previous movies was a ‘stinker’.
Johnson was responding to a tweet by review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes that certified Rampage as the highest rated video game movie on the site - it currently stands at a 50% ‘rotten’ - and he said that he should know, since he starred in the universally derided Doom.
READ | Rampage movie review: Dwayne Johnson’s film has shades of Salman Khan, but it’s better
Doom, released in 2005, was a critical and commercial failure. It’s Rotten Tomatoes score is 19% and it failed to recoup its $60 million budget. The film was based on the first person shooter series of the same name, and starred Karl Urban and Rosamund Pike.
The official Twitter handle for Doom had a concise response to Johnson’s tweet. “Dwayne,” it read.
{{/usCountry}}The official Twitter handle for Doom had a concise response to Johnson’s tweet. “Dwayne,” it read.
{{/usCountry}}Johnson sees Rampage’s mixed reception as a break in the video game curse. No film based on a video game has ever been received positively. The most successful adaptation of a game is 2016’s Warcraft, which made over $400 million worldwide. The previous record holder was Prince of Persia, whose massive $200 million budget meant that even a $300 million plus gross was seen as a disappointment.
The recent Assassin’s Creed and Tomb Raider adaptations received similarly mixed-negative reviews, with Tomb Raider being the more successful of the two.
Rampage is faring far better with audiences than with critics. The film received an ‘A-’ rating on CinemaScore, the service that tallies opening day audience responses based on a grade system. Johnson also tweeted about this a day later.
The film, made on a $120 million budget, will have to gross over $400 million worldwide to register a profit.
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