The Rock is on top of shaky 'San Andreas' world
LAS VEGAS — The world might be crumbling in the earthquake action thriller San Andreas, but Dwayne Johnson has a pretty great perch.
Friday's opening comes during a particularly strong streak for The Rock. San Andreas, which casts him as a Los Angeles Fire Department rescue pilot, explodes in theaters even as his megahit Furious 7 continues to roll at the box office.
Furious 7 has shown staying power, ranking eighth last weekend (with $2.8 million) and continuing to add to its staggering $1.5 billion worldwide.
Johnson says the already-hot Furious franchise was propelled to another level with the farewell to standout star Paul Walker, who died in a car crash on Nov. 30, 2013.
"It was a lot of different elements coming together at the same time, and the lead element being Paul, seeing him for the very last time," Johnson told theater owners last month at the CinemaCon convention.
Still, Johnson added his own star power as Luke Hobbs, with Rentrak analyst Paul Dergarabedian calling him "the ultimate box-office supercharger when added to the mix of existing franchises."
In March, Johnson hosted Saturday Night Live, opening with a skit about being "franchise Viagra." His films — including the G.I. Joe, Fast & Furious and Journey to the Center of the Earth franchises — have grossed nearly $5.7 billion, according to Rentrak.
Next month, he steps into the coveted HBO arena with new series Ballers (premiering June 21), which stars Johnson as a superstar athlete trying to reinvent himself as a financial manager.
A college football star at the University of Miami during the team's national championship 1991 season, Johnson sees clear parallels to his own life. The setting is even Miami, where Johnson still owns a home.
"The character was tailor-written for me," says Johnson. "It's in my DNA."
He's not letting the momentum slow down. In between a heavy worldwide promotional schedule for San Andreas (current stop: China), Johnson already has started filming the comedy Central Intelligence with Kevin Hart, in which he plays a lethal but dorky hitman.
"Things are great right now, but you've got to hustle," he says. "You have to create opportunities for yourself. There are a lot of other actors and actresses around who want to take cracks and knock home runs, too."
He's not too busy to follow through on one big lesson from San Andreas: preparing his Los Angeles home for a real quake. He was in a relatively minor 4.7 magnitude quake in 2009.
"I was right under my chandelier in this large foyer, and all of a sudden it started to shake. It was an awful place to be," says Johnson. "I just stepped aside. Removed myself from the danger. And then it stopped."
But seeing movie-set destruction daily proved a powerful incentive for a better plan. A month ago, Johnson, his longtime girlfriend Lauren Hashian and his 13-year-old daughter Simone (with ex-wife Dany Garcia) practiced quake drills and stocked disaster kits (quirky item: his beloved Pop-Tarts).
The practice was crucial, even though Johnson backed out of drill-scaling a cement wall in the yard because of "tight hammy" (hamstring) muscles.
"But at least we now have a legit plan as a family in the event Mother Nature rears," says Johnson. "Me and my hammys will be ready."
