Come get your schadenfreude, the Dwayne Johnson hit piece is here

Following Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s failed attempt to take over the DC Cinematic Universe with his character, Black Adam, at the center (an awe-inspiring act of hubris, even for him), there was clearly blood in the water. Yes, the hierarchy of power in Hollywood has indeed changed, and The Rock is no longer the untouchable juggernaut he appeared to be in the mid-to-late 2010s. While Johnson crawled back to WWE and The Fast And The Furious franchise with his tail between his legs, at least one journalist started checking under the hood of his megastar persona, and now the chickens have come home to roost.

A new piece from The Wrap focuses on allegations of unprofessionalism from Johnson and his team, particularly in regards to the upcoming Christmas action-comedy Red One (co-starring Chris Evans and J.K. Simmons). More than a dozen anonymous sources spilled the tea on the reportedly tumultuous production. Red One is a Johnson production through and through, directed by his Jumanji collaborator Jake Kasdan and written by his Fast & Furious collaborator Chris Morgan based on an idea from his Seven Bucks President of Production Hiram Garcia.

The budget for this movie reportedly ballooned in part because Garcia, Johnson’s former assistant and his ex-brother-in-law, allegedly can’t handle producing a big budget feature and doesn’t have “any interest” in scheduling or budgeting. There’s also an eyebrow-raising bit about diverting funds for movie marketing to Johnson’s personal production company, taking advantage of film promo to create promo materials for his business ventures XFL and Teremana Tequila. Red One was also allegedly derailed by Johnson’s alleged habit of showing up an average of seven to eight hours late for work.

Yep, the guy who’s always posting about his own incredible work ethic supposedly has an “absolute refusal” to work more than four or five hours a day (“It’s a control thing,” one insider theorized). This is the guy who called one of his co-stars a “candy ass” because of their different moviemaking philosophies. But as The Wrap points out, we’ve actually known for a while that Vin Diesel’s philosophy is along the lines of, “Hello, can you show up for work, please?” Way back in 2016, a source claimed to People that Diesel had an issue with the way Johnson was “delaying production” by showing up late or not at all to set. And Diesel is apparently not the only co-star who has taken issue with Johnson’s chronic tardiness. The wrestler’s call times are supposedly no longer listed on call sheets because an unnamed co-star started keeping a log of how late to set Johnson was every day. Insiders also claimed he had a “huge fight” with Ryan Reynolds over his lateness on Red Notice and the pair didn’t speak for years (they have reportedly since made up and are scheduled to make a Red Notice sequel).

It should be noted that most of the entities named in the piece, including Netflix, Amazon MGM, and insiders for Seven Bucks, have denied any friction or unprofessionalism. “Dwayne Johnson and Seven Bucks have been incredible partners on Red One—a film that audiences of all ages are going to love this holiday season,” a spokesperson for Amazon MGM, which also takes a few whacks in the story, said to The Wrap. “Our testing has been very strong — the reaction from CinemaCon speaks for itself — and we couldn’t have made it without Dwayne’s constant work and support. Any reporting that implies that we got to this point with him showing up seven-eight hours late to set is both ridiculous and false.” Three sources, including one close to Seven Bucks, claimed Johnson averaged no more than an hour late to set.

Oh, also, The Rock apparently pees in water bottles to save time and possibly hands his urine bottles off to assistants or PAs to deal with, but that was already sort of public knowledge? In a post-Black Adam world, everything is ammunition! You can read the full piece for yourself here.