Dwayne Johnson, also known as “The Rock” to the WWE Universe, has held many titles throughout the year: football player for The University of Miami, undisputed WWE Champion, owner of the United Football League, and actor. Monday morning, he added another title to his resume: Golden Globe Award nominee.
Earlier Monday, the nominations for the Jan. 11 Golden Globe Awards were revealed during a live broadcast on CBS News. CBS will broadcast the awards banquet proper on the second Sunday in January at 8 pm ET/ 5 pm PT from the Beverly Hilton in Hollywood, CA.
Dwayne Johnson was cast as the star of the motion picture The Smashing Machine, a biographical film concerning the life and times of former UFC fighter Mark Kerr. Johnson’s production company, Seven Bucks Productions, co-produced the feature with A24 Films.
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Dwayne Johnson Secures Best Male Actor in Motion Picture- Drama Nomination Monday
When the nominations were announced during the broadcast on CBS by emcees Marlon Wayans and Skye P. Marshall, Johnson was placed in the category of Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture- Drama. If you’re unfamiliar with how the Golden Globes categorizes acting performances, it’s different than the Academy Awards.
The Globes categorizes acting roles separately for dramatic works and musicals and/or comedies as opposed to single categories for leading and supporting performers. Dwayne Johnson’s opponents in this category include Joel Edgerton for his work in the picture Train Dreams, Oscar Issac in Frankenstein, Michael B. Jordan for Sinners, Wagner Moura for his role in The Secret Agent, and Jeremy Allen White in Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere.
Dwayne Johnson wasn’t the only performer in The Smashing Machine to receive a Golden Globes nod on this Monday. Emily Blunt, who portrayed Mark Kerr’s ex-wife Dawn Staples in the movie, was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress- Any Movie.
Could Dwayne Johnson Hear “…And the Oscar Goes To…” in March?
The Golden Globe Awards take place Jan. 11. 64 days later, Dolby Theatre in Hollywood plays host to the motion picture industry’s most important evening, as the venue holds the 98th Annual Academy Awards.
Conan O’Brien hosts the ceremony for the second straight year in a live broadcast on ABC. While the Oscars won’t be for another three months, people are already wondering if Johnson’s work in the film will lead to an Oscar nod and a victory for “The Rock.”
Statistically speaking, Rotten Tomatoes’ entry for The Smashing Machine indicates that the A24 Films release holds a 70 percent rating on the Website. This critical acclaim received by Dwayne Johnson is a far cry from the numbers the film brought in at the box office upon its release.
Produced for $50 million (USD,) the picture only grossed $21 million in ticket sales. While there are a number of reasons why the film limped out of the starting blocks, none of them matter now.
Stats Irrelevant When It Comes To Dwayne Johnson’s Work
Even if the film did poorly when it came to ticket sales and marketing (its opening weekend in theaters saw the picture take in $6 million in receipts,) those are just numbers. What really is important as it relates to this movie and Dwayne Johnson’s performance in it is the feedback he has received about the biopic.
The real Mark Kerr was a guest of The Joe Rogan Experience during an episode earlier this fall and talked about Johnson’s involvement with the picture.
“With DJ [Dwayne Johnson,] I kept trying to say to him, ‘You don’t have to do this, dude, like you don’t have to do this'”, Kerr began. “He would stop me and he would go ‘Yeah, I do, yeah, I do.’ He’s at a place in his life where he can just keep doing blockbusters and be perfectly fine with it. He says it himself: ‘There’s always a place for that’ There’s always going to be a place for blockbuster movies, but he needed to do something different. He needed to do something different.”
Final Thoughts
Dwayne Johnson deserves this Golden Globe nomination. While he’s known for his run in the WWE and roles in family-oriented fare, this role could take his career to new heights.
A victory on Jan. 11 during the Globes will be a step in the right direction.
