Dwayne Johnson Officially Undergoes Shocking Transformation for New Movie

Dwayne Johnson underwent a physical transformation into mixed martial arts legend Mark Kerr for his last collaboration with director Benny Safdie, the biopic The Smashing Machine. Now, he’s almost unrecognizable in Safdie’s next movie, the fantasy family film Lizard Music. The first on-set images from the film have arrived, chronicling Johnson’s performance as a septuagenarian street performer in the movie, which is slated to be released next Christmas.

In the photos, Johnson looks to have added about 20 years and lost 30 pounds of muscle to play the eccentric Chicken Man; he’s also sporting a bucket hat that, as all readers of the book know, conceals his best friend, an elderly chicken named Claudia. Johnson underwent a five-hour makeup process daily to complete his transformation. The man responsible is veteran makeup artist Kazu Hiro, who also made Tom Cruise into an elderly oil tycoon in Digger. You’ll be able to see for yourself when Amazon MGM Studios releases the film in theaters on Christmas Day, 2027.

In addition to Johnson, the movie also stars Regina Hall (One Battle After Another), Tim Heidecker (Us), Alicia Silverstone (Clueless), Andrew Dice Clay (A Star Is Born), and newcomers Arya Parvathi and Theo Clark Leber. It also features the voices of Colman Domingo (Michael), Jeff Goldblum (Wicked), Rachel McAdams (Send Help), and David Krumholtz (Oppenheimer); they’ll presumably be playing the lizards of the title, most of whom are named Reynold. Safdie directs and also co-wrote the script with Ronald Bronstein, who he previously collaborated with on Good Time and Uncut Gems.

That Thing You Do! turned thirty last week, which is a good reminder
that the bands nobody signed are the ones we keep arguing about. Here is yours, what it says about
you, and the case for it being the best band on the list.

You want the real thing, the tour bus, the mythology and all the
mess that comes with it. Stillwater are a band on the exact edge of making it, which is the
most interesting place a band can possibly be and the worst place to live.

• You take it seriously, which is your best quality and the thing that will start the
  argument.
• Cameron Crowe wrote it from his own teenage years touring with bands as a Rolling Stone
  writer.
• Nancy Wilson of Heart wrote the band’s music, and Tiny Dancer on the bus is still the
  scene everybody quotes.
• Your risk is believing your own legend before anybody else has agreed to it.

You are committed to the bit and you will not be talked out of
it. Spinal Tap lose their drummers, their venues and their dignity on a rolling basis, and
they get back in the van every time, which is arguably the most admirable thing on this
list.

• You would rather be gloriously wrong at full volume than quietly correct.
• Rob Reiner’s film was so convincing that real bands spent years insisting it was about
  somebody else.
• Spinal Tap II: The End Continues arrived in 2025 with Paul McCartney and Elton John
  turning up to play.
• Your weakness is never knowing when the joke has stopped being a joke.

You want the perfect moment more than the long career. The
Wonders have one song, one summer and one trip to the top of the charts, and the film is
clear that this is both the best thing that ever happened to them and completely enough.

• You are the one holding the thing together while everybody else is busy falling out.
• Tom Hanks wrote and directed it, and the title song was nominated for an Academy Award
  in 1997.
• The film turned thirty on the fourth of October and the song still works on the first
  listen.
• Your flaw is wanting things to stay lovely, which is not how bands or anything else
  works.

You are in it for the person standing next to you, and the music
is almost a side effect. Wyld Stallyns cannot play yet, know they cannot play yet, and carry
on with total confidence, which is either the worst idea on this list or the only correct
one.

• You turn up for your friends first and the music second, and you would not have it the
  other way round.
• The whole trilogy runs on one joke, which is that a future utopia gets built on a band
  that is not ready.
• Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter came back for Bill & Ted Face the Music in 2020,
  twenty-nine years after the last one.
• Your risk is coasting on enthusiasm, because being excellent to each other is not the
  same as rehearsing.

What Is ‘Lizard Music’ About?

Based on the 1976 novel by Daniel Pinkwater, Lizard Music centers around Victor, an oddball eleven-year-old who finds himself home alone for a two-week stretch of the summer. After he catches a glimpse of a bizarre, all-lizard band on late-night TV, he goes adventuring to find the source of the TV signal, and is eventually joined in his pursuit by the Chicken Man (played by Johnson), an eccentric street performer, and his trained chicken, Claudia. Together, they seek out the secret invisible island that a race of intelligent lizards call home…but once they’ve found it, will they ever leave it?

Lizard Music will be released on December 25, 2027. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.