'Rampage' - Writers Focus On Characters And Humanity With Latest Rewrite

Enough about ‘Resurgence’ and ‘Skull Island’. Everyone’s dying to know what’s going on with the ‘Rampage’ Movie! Last summer, we learned that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson would be starring in a feature film based on the 1986 video game ‘Rampage’. We have now gotten a slight update on the film from the writers and it gives us a glimpse at the route thy may be taking with this adaptation.

For those whippersnappers who don’t remember, ‘Rampage’ was a multiplayer arcade (and later console) game that revolved around 3 massive monsters. Players controlled these monsters who were actually humans that had been turned into the monsters through various accidents. There was Lizzie, a lizard exposed to radioactive material dumped in a near-by lake, Ralph, a werewolf-ish thing mutated by a mysterious food additive, and George, a gorilla grown to incredible size after eating an experimental vitamin. The object of the game was to smash a generic city-scape to bits while fighting the military and civilians who somehow got a hold of dynamite. I assume they had it beforehand, and when the giant monster showed up, they thought “If not now….” The game was totally bonkers with a cheeky sense of humor and the most fun a kid could have in between viewings of “The Thing That Was From Beyond Space That Shouldn’t Be But Was”.

So where are we in the big screen translation? Well, writers Carlton Cuse and Ryan Condol are waiting to see if their rewrite of the script will be green lit by New Line Cinemas. In an interview at the 2016 TCA summer press tour, Cuse told IGN:

“...they seem super enthusiastic about it at New Line. Last I heard they were trying to work out schedule and budget. Dwayne [Johnson]’s obviously a really busy guy.”

The waiting is to be expected in show business, but Cuse did give us a little news on what the movie will be like, promising to “bring real character and humanity to a story that is basically about giant rampaging monsters.”

So we know they’re making a movie, and The Rock is in it. Carlton Cuse was a showrunner on ‘Lost’, and he and Ryan Condol created FX’s ‘The Colony’. Between the two of them there is a lot of creativity and talent, and I have a deep and passionate love for Dwayne Johnson. But a movie based on ‘Rampage’? The game didn’t really have any story, you were just smashing things for the sake of smashing them. It makes me a little nervous to hear about “character and humanity” when describing a monster movie.

It's great for the films 'Godzilla' and 'The Host' to have “character and humanity” (given that those monsters are representative of bigger problems) but Lizzie, George, and Ralph are parodies of old b-movies from the 50’s and 60’s. Cuse mentions a “disaster-type movie”, but I don’t think the ‘San Andreas’ plot line is going to work here. This should, I think, be a love letter to drive-in creature features. I don’t want to see Johnson reunited with his estranged wife at the end of a catastrophe where they have to band together to survive and learn more about each other and grow along the way. I want to see a 10 story werewolf ride an airplane to Europe so he can smash the Eiffel Tower.  

Do you remember Rampage? Who was your favorite character? What snacks did you eat in between levels? Let us know in the comments!