Thus far, 2018 has been going quite well for Dwayne Johnson. With the exception of one weekend, Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle has been at the top of the box office charts all year. That said, Johnson has never been one to dwell on his successes, which is why we are now just a few months away from Skyscraper -- the new action/thriller that just debuted its first trailer during the Super Bowl. The film looks absolutely insane, and the trailer has revealed one very interesting twist on the chaos: The Rock only has one leg in the film. Check out the trailer, below.
Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, Skyscraper stars Dwayne Johnson as Will Sawyer, a former soldier, FBI Hostage Rescue Team leader and amputee who is employed checking security systems in high-rise buildings. Unfortunately, when his work brings him to China, he finds himself not only framed for arson, but needing to rescue his family trapped inside the world's tallest and safest building. What follows is a race against time (and a growing blaze) to save the people he loves in the face of an array of seemingly insurmountable odds.
It's a fascinating twist on a traditional action movie premise to give The Rock's character only one leg in this movie. He's a physical powerhouse in almost all of his films (which generally matches the fact that he's quite literally one of the biggest movie stars in the world), and he's almost always framed as a dominant figure against his enemies. By making him an amputee (the origins of which we don't quite know yet), the film is able to put him at a tactical disadvantage while also adding new dimensions to his personality.
And, of course, the trailer also makes it clear that a prosthetic leg isn't particularly helpful when you're dangling 240 floors in the air.
Beyond the fact that Will Sawyer only has one leg, Skyscraper looks incredibly intriguing just for the ways in which it blends elements of classic genres, while also telling a new story. When Dwayne Johnson released a first-look at the movie on social media last week, he specifically emphasized the fact that it's not based upon any existing property, franchise or piece of intellectual property. That said, it also seems to play like a love letter to classic disaster movies like The Towering Inferno (which The Rock's San Andreas also did in 2015), as well as action classics like Die Hard. Couple that with The Rock's inherent box office appeal, and there are a number of reasons to start getting excited about Skyscraper's particular brand of action.
CinemaBlend will bring you more information related to Skyscraper (as well as all of Dwayne Johnson's biggest movies) as more details are made available to us. Skyscraper will debut in theaters later this summer on July 13.
