When it comes to the many upcoming movies starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, perhaps the most exciting is his role in A24’s The Smashing Machine. The movie is a change of pace from the wrestling champ’s many action flicks, as it's going to be a tense drama and biopic about the life of former UFC and PRIDE fighter Mark Kerr. Filming recently got underway, but as The Rock shared on Tuesday, he’s been hit with an injury on set.
Dwayne Johnson took to Instagram to reveal that he has already gotten “smashed up” on the set of The Smashing Machine, as he seemed to have expected. Check out the update from Instagram:
Now, it doesn’t sound like Johnson had gotten it checked out yet when he posted the video, but he did do a little show and tell to reveal what he called a ”cantaloupe at the bottom of my elbow” to his nearly 400 million followers. As he says in the video, he plans to get an MRI for the injury, but for now, he’s expecting the injury might have him dealing with some soft tissue damage on his right elbow.
Johnson looks to be taking the injury like a champ, quoting his own father by saying “a day without pain is like a day without sunshine, boy” as he asked the internet to offer him any advice they could involving anti-inflammatories. The remedy the actor decided on ingesting for the time being (as a little shameless self promotion) was his tequila brand, Teremana. While it’s a funny bit in his video, apparently tequila, some studies have actually revealed there are anti-inflammatory properties in this type pf alcohol, with the caveat to always drink your liquor responsibly.
Going back to The Smashing Machine, the project was announced in December 2023 (per THR) with Johnson signing on to be directed by Uncut Gems co-director Benny Safdie at the helm. The movie is set to be about Mark Kerr during the peak of his career in 2000, which also had the fighter struggling with drug addiction. Johnson has been passionate about telling Kerr’s story since 2019, and now he’s finally been able to be on set to make that a reality. Check out the first image from The Smashing Machine as A24 revealed when filming kicked off in late May:
As pictured in the right side of the image, Emily Blunt is starring with The Rock as Kerr’s wife, Dawn Staples. Prior to Johnson stepping on set, the actor trained hard to look the part and shared an insane leg day photo. There’s no release date yet for The Smashing Machine, but Johnson has two movies coming out in November, Red One and Moana 2. He’s also set to be in one of the upcoming live-action Disney movies, the Moana remake.
Here’s hoping Johnson’s elbow heals soon and well! We can’t wait to see The Smashing Machine.
