One of the recurring themes of Dwayne Johnson’s career at the very top of the Hollywood A-list is that virtually everything he touches is designed with sequels in mind, and they often end up getting officially announced, before ultimately fading into the ether of development hell.
At various points we’ve heard plans for a follow up to Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, another disaster epic to pick up where San Andreas left off, more monster madness built out from video game adaptation Rampage, a third installment in the constantly rebooting G.I. Joe series, without forgetting the countless other projects he’s attached himself to over the years that never came close to getting made.
With that in mind, there are absolutely no guarantees that second Jungle Cruise will definitely happen, especially when The Rock already has plans afoot for festive blockbuster Red One, more Hobbs & Shaw and his impending DCEU debut in Black Adam.
Speaking to Collider, producer Hiram Garcia addressed why the actor and producer has such an inconsistent track record for getting those sequels over the finishing line.
“It’s funny that you say that, and the truth is people always ask because we’re in a very fortunate situation where our partners always want a sequel to everything, right? It’s a matter of our slate and the stories we want to tell. We’re very calculating in what we want to tell, but, look, if our studio partners had their ways, they want a Journey 2: Mysterious Island sequel, they want a San Andreas sequel, they want a Rampage sequel. It’s like all of those movies, the studio was clamoring for a sequel, but we felt collectively, “Look, we told a great version of the story. Now, we want to go to tell another story somewhere else.”
But it is a very funny thing where if he did the sequel for everything that there was a request for a sequel, he would literally never not be working. He’s just been very selective about what he chooses to come back for sequels. So the Fast Universe was one of those, obviously Jumanji. We have very big plans, obviously, for the DC Universe, if the fans perceive the way we want. We have a lot of stories planned for that. But it is a challenge of balancing, “Okay, what are the sequels we’re going to do,” because we’ve been very fortunate that the majority of the projects we’ve done, there’s been a request for sequel, and his availability has always been the thing that made it a challenge.”
It would be nice to see Johnson try and stretch himself outside of the four-quadrant comfort zone he’s called home for the last decade, but you don’t become the biggest and highest-paid onscreen talent in the industry by taking risks, so he’ll no doubt be sticking to what’s worked wonders so far.