Arts & Entertainment

Dwayne Johnson calls “Red Notice” his toughest film to make

By Javier Romualdo

Los Angeles, Nov 5 (EFE).- Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has appeared in a slew of action movies, but he says that the physical exertions of those productions pale in comparison to the emotional strain of making “Red Notice” during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The most challenging movie” was how the 49-year-old professional wrestler turned actor described the experience hours ahead of the limited theatrical release of the Netflix production co-starring Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot.

Filming “during Covid as the Delta variant is spiking, you’re trying to figure that out, so you’re trying to do everything you can to manage the culture of the movie on set with 800, a thousand, crew members,” Johnson told Efe.

“And you’re doing your best to be emotionally supportive of everybody and making sure that everyone is supported and everyone has everything that they need, but at the same time, the north star that you have to keep in mind is the deliverable for the audience: let’s keep putting in the work, let’s remember the audience let’s remember the movie and make a great movie,” he said.

Netflix has been trying to carve out a niche for itself in the action blockbuster genre with ventures such as “The Old Guard,” starring Charlize Theron, and “Extraction,” with Chris Hemsworth as the headliner.

With an estimated price tag of $160 million, “Red Notice,” which is set to begin streaming Nov. 12, represents Netflix’s biggest gamble to date, featuring three of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood.

The film, a project of Rawson Marshall Thurber, who wrote and directed two previous films with Johnson, “Central Intelligence” and “Skyscraper,” originally belonged to Universal Pictures, but that studio dropped it and Netflix acquired the rights in 2019.

Shooting got under way in January 2020, only to be suspended in March due to Covid-19.

Work resumed in September 2020 and filming wrapped up two months later.

“Red Notice” – the title refers to Interpol’s designation for most-wanted criminals – follows FBI agent John Hartley as he chases rival art thieves Nolan Booth (Reynolds) and The Bishop (Gadot), who are both in pursuit of three gold-plated eggs given to Cleopatra.

“I’ve done a lot of movies like this in the past where there’s a crew of actors and you hope everybody gets along, you hope everybody has fun, and in a case like “Red Notice,” we all had a blast,” Johnson told Efe. EFE

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