The Rock Says He's No Longer Chasing Box Office After Being "Pigeonholed," Reveals Slimmed Down New Look

The Rock Says He's No Longer Chasing Box Office After Being "Pigeonholed," Reveals Slimmed Down New Look

Black Adam star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has said he will no longer be pressured into starring in big-budget action movies as he looks to take on more serious roles. With that comes a new, slimmer frame.

By JoshWilding - Sep 01, 2025 11:09 AM EST
Filed Under: Action
Source: TheRingReport.com

The past few years have been something of a mixed bag for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The professional wrestler-turned-Hollywood A-lister could once do no wrong and was one of Hollywood's highest-grossing, highest-paid action stars. 

Johnson hoped to take charge of the DC Universe with Black Adam, but was quickly ousted from that franchise when the movie flopped. Around the same time, Young Rock was cancelled by NBC, his football league, the XFL, failed to take off, and WWE fans made it clear they didn't want him to steal Cody Rhodes' spot in the WrestleMania main event by loudly booing the Brahma Bull. 

A successful heel turn as the Final Boss followed, but wrestling fans have since expressed disappointment with The Rock for abandoning storylines he inserted himself into and changing the narrative of what goes on backstage to make himself look better. 

Why hasn't The Rock been in WWE for most of 2025? Well, he's busy reinventing himself as a serious actor, taking on a buzzy role in The Smashing Machine, an A24 movie about UFC champion Mark Kerr that many believe could win him an Oscar. 

Johnson, who is known for his massive, hulking frame, is looking to take on much different roles moving forward—he's even got a Martin Scorsese movie in the pipeline—and appears to have shed a lot of weight to do so. He wouldn't be the first to do so, as Dave Bautista similarly dropped a huge amount of muscle when his time as the MCU's Drax reached its end. 

The Rock had to lose some muscle for his WWE return last year, but it was probably still quite challenging to shed all that extra weight from his intense training regimen. As we first pointed out on TheRingReport.com, he still looks in excellent shape. 

Variety caught up with Johnson about The Smashing Machine, learning more about his shift from action movies to more serious fare.

"I have, for a long time, wanted this," he said. "The three of us have talked for a very long time about, when you’re in Hollywood — as we all know, it had become about box office. And you chase the box office, and the box office can be very loud and it can become very resounding and it can push you into a category and a corner. This is your lane and this is what you do and this is what Hollywood wants you to do."

"I just had this burning desire and voice that was saying, 'What if there is more and what if I can?' Sometimes it’s hard for us to know what we’re capable of when we’ve been pigeonholed into something," Johnson continued. "It's harder to know what you’re capable of, and sometimes it takes people that you know and love, like Emily and Benny, to say that you can."

"I looked around a few years ago and I started to think, you know, am I living my dream or am I living other people’s dreams? You come to that recognition and I think you can either fall in line or go, I want to live my dreams now and do what I wanna do. I’ve been scared to go deep and intense and raw until now, until I had this opportunity," he added. 

Johnson is taking a major career risk and deserves a lot of credit for that. Whether it pays off for him remains to be seen, but he's clearly going all in on reinventing himself for this next stage of his acting career. 

Stay tuned for updates on The Rock's future as we have it.

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WalletsClosed
WalletsClosed - 9/1/2025, 11:12 AM
The Rock's DC>>>>> Gunn's degenerate DC.

It wouldn't be as good as the snyderverse, but I'd rather have Cavill as Superman vs his Black Adam anyday than the slop we're currently getting
UncleHarm1
UncleHarm1 - 9/1/2025, 11:16 AM
@WalletsClosed - So you like bad movies
NonPlayerC
NonPlayerC - 9/1/2025, 11:16 AM
@WalletsClosed - there was one good movie (my opinion) in the snyderverse and it was the first movie. even it had flaws

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WalletsClosed
WalletsClosed - 9/1/2025, 11:18 AM
@UncleHarm1 - The movies/shows we're getting is currently terrible. Black Adam was bad, and yet it's better than every single Gunn DC project.
WalletsClosed
WalletsClosed - 9/1/2025, 11:19 AM
@NonPlayerC - Every Snyderverse movie was good and the box office reflected that. Diaperman was shit and it flopped at the box office
mountainman
mountainman - 9/1/2025, 11:28 AM
@WalletsClosed - Counterpoint: Black Adam, and most DCEU content, is worse than 100% of what we’ve gotten from the rebooted DCU so far.
NonPlayerC
NonPlayerC - 9/1/2025, 11:32 AM
@WalletsClosed - hey im not saying Gunns supe was perfect, he did some things right that man of steel got wrong but I still like man of steel better. but after man of steel they had batman shoot people, his if 1 percent chance superman is bad, take it as a certainty line (right after supes saved the world from zod), the Martha moment, him telling everyone he was batman, Ezra miller flash was just all around bad, so was cyborg, aqua man made money but he was essentially a joke character and gal as Wonder Woman was meh. they edged darkside but had them fight steppenwolf who was a one dimensional villain, and turned superman bad before the justice league had really even formed making him a side character. I could go on. im happy you liked it but it was almost as bad as the fox men in my opinion.
WalletsClosed
WalletsClosed - 9/1/2025, 11:35 AM
@mountainman - Box office disagrees
mountainman
mountainman - 9/1/2025, 11:42 AM
@WalletsClosed - Domestic box office Superman 2025 earned more than all DCEU movies besides 1.

Worldwide, it earned more than 9 of the 15 DCEU movies, which qualifies as MOST per my previous comment.

But I wasn’t talking about office and you know that. Your opinion is that Superman 2025 is worse than Black Adam, from a subjective film enjoyment standpoint.

I’d argue that you are in an extreme minority with your opinion.

And to be clear, the box office very clearly does not disagree with my original statement.
WalletsClosed
WalletsClosed - 9/1/2025, 11:46 AM
@mountainman - Adjusting for inflation, it gets destroyed. No one cares solely about domestic. That has never been a metric. It failed internationally and thus failed worldwide.

No I am not in the minority at all. Superman will be looked at in 5 years like how we look at Batman & Robin now. People only like it because of recency bias and people want good DC content. When they rewatch it, they'll see exactly what people like me were talking about. Supershit was terrible and Black Adam while being bad is the much better movie
epc1122
epc1122 - 9/1/2025, 12:51 PM
@WalletsClosed - adjusting for inflation is a b.s. criteria.
WalletsClosed
WalletsClosed - 9/1/2025, 1:24 PM
@epc1122 - Says who?
mountainman
mountainman - 9/1/2025, 1:33 PM
@WalletsClosed - Adjusting for inflation is such a cope that almost always favor the older movie to the newer one. Are you also adjusting the production costs for inflation too? Because whatever multiplier you put on the dollar earnings, you must put the same multiplier on the production costs.

But whatever, keep moving the goal posts. Black Adam was still an abomination of a movie that only a Snyder cultist could claim is better than Superman 2025.
NonPlayerC
NonPlayerC - 9/1/2025, 11:14 AM
the pebble
TheFinestSmack
TheFinestSmack - 9/1/2025, 11:19 AM
I wouldn't say he deserves a ton of credit for taking a career risk. He's been box office poison for a while. When it got bad enough, he fled back to wrestling where he wasn't well received. Nowhere else for him to really go right now.
WalletsClosed
WalletsClosed - 9/1/2025, 11:25 AM
@TheFinestSmack - "he fled back to wrestling where he wasn't well received"

Nonsense. The final boss character is incredibly well received and he contributed to one of the biggest and best WrestleMania's of the modern era
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 9/1/2025, 11:21 AM
Honestly , that looked like AI to me and didn’t seem real but good for him if he’s down to expand his horizons and do more roles akin to Bautista…

I know besides The Smashing Machine (which he does seem to be doing well in) , he’s also gonna be in Darren Aronofsky’s next and the lead in a Martin Scorsese film alongside Leonardo DiCaprio so he definitely seems serious about this next phase.

Anyway , good luck to him!!.
theFUZZ008
theFUZZ008 - 9/1/2025, 11:25 AM
Dwayne….

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Bucky74
Bucky74 - 9/1/2025, 11:33 AM
That Mark Karr film does look excellent, but you knew Rock would have to stop the sauce eventually as he got older for health reasons
JonAwesome
JonAwesome - 9/1/2025, 12:05 PM
@Bucky74 - exactly! At his age his heart probably can’t take the amount of gear he was taking and he needs to dial it back!
DocSpock
DocSpock - 9/1/2025, 11:47 AM

Sick of the big meathead pretending he's acting anyway. If he disappeared forever immediately, I would never notice or care that he was gone.
DudeGuy
DudeGuy - 9/1/2025, 12:03 PM
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lazlodaytona
lazlodaytona - 9/1/2025, 12:06 PM
I get Rock has aot of haters. It's underserved in my opinion. His DC move was a disaster, but, I generally like his movies. His timing in comedy is really good. Now we'll see how he does in the dramatic department.

I wish him nothing but the best. He seems like a good chap overall. A little overzealous, but who isn't when you breakthrough in Hollywood.
NonPlayerC
NonPlayerC - 9/1/2025, 12:32 PM
@lazlodaytona - yeah I agree. Trying to make black atom the hero before being the villain to captain marvel was just dumb, but he's probably one of the most watchable actors. I can even watch the atrocious movies with him in it. you see skyscraper or san Andreas? sooo bad to the point of comedy but still watchable because of him. I find him a little douchey personally sometimes but ive enjoyed his movies since the walking tall days
SteviesRightFoo
SteviesRightFoo - 9/1/2025, 12:14 PM
First time the rock has been off cycle in 20 years
JustAWaffle
JustAWaffle - 9/1/2025, 12:23 PM
I mean, it’s probably super healthy for him not to be on the juice as he’s getting up there in age. All the head trauma from football and WWF/E over the years probably did some damage to his life span as well. So anything at this point to build heart and brain health is a must.

MouthyMerc
MouthyMerc - 9/1/2025, 12:26 PM
Rock was my fav wrestler growing up so I will never boo him or hate him. I support him.
PartyKiller
PartyKiller - 9/1/2025, 12:29 PM
If he played Black Adam as a pompous bastard like Yul Brenner's Ramses II, the movie could've been so much more entertaining. And he should've had Black Adam addressing himself in 3rd person, as he did as The Rock.

PapaBear562
PapaBear562 - 9/1/2025, 12:30 PM
He looks like an older man in that X video. Just yeah, he needed to lose some weight. Heck, I think most of us could learn a lesson or two here. I know it would me help to lose some weight.
ModHaterSLADE
ModHaterSLADE - 9/1/2025, 12:43 PM
Given his age, it was only a matter of time before he had to give up the juice to stay relatively healthy. With that being said, his upcoming film looks like it's gonna be pretty good, him and Emily Blunt have good chemistry.
MuadDib
MuadDib - 9/1/2025, 12:47 PM
As Christina Bale as shown is, actors can drop weight and gain weight as needed when needed. The Rock taking a break from the juice is a much needed break. There’s nothing stopping him from muscling up again if that’s what he really wanted.

That said, his size is really what made him stand out. That’s not taking anything away from his acting skills, which he has some. But his size was a huge component and relying more on his acting abilities will be a bit of an uphill battle.

Everyone online loves to scrutinize every aspect of everyone’s life and troll them on the tiniest of flaws or weaknesses. But overall Rock has achieved things few ever will and he’s a huge success, he’s rich and famous. Haters gonna hate.

Here’s wishing him continued success and that in due time he bulks up again.
TheHellblazer
TheHellblazer - 9/1/2025, 12:47 PM
Lmao... His head is so big
Forthas
Forthas - 9/1/2025, 1:04 PM
The cynic in me thinks he probably was told by his doctor that the heavy use of steroids was having an adverse effect on his health. It can include any one of: infertility, shrunken testicles, male breast enlargement, abnormal enlargement of the heart muscle, high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol levels, increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, and blood clots, damage or failure of the liver and kidneys, aggression, mood swings, paranoia, deep depression, severe and persistent acne and/or accelerated male-pattern baldness.

So cue the excuse to stop its use and offer a public excuse as to why he is shrinking down to a normal size.
DSAC294
DSAC294 - 9/1/2025, 1:37 PM
@Forthas - I think the cynic in you is calling it 💯 right! Even the way he says that sounds written by agent.
ShimmyShimmyYA
ShimmyShimmyYA - 9/1/2025, 1:16 PM
Good for him

I also think the love he’s seen Bautista and Cena get for not being box office chasers might’ve got to him

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