The Rock is about to become the Chicken Man. Dwayne Johnson is set to reteam with his Smashing Machine director, Benny Safdie, to make Lizard Music, a fantasy adventure based on the popular 1976 book by Daniel Pinkwater.
According to Deadline, which broke the news, Johnson will play the aforementioned poultry-themed character, who teams up with a young man to explore some mysterious goings-on involving music played by lizards on TV. It’s one of those books you probably read in middle school or high school that really opened your imagination, though you likely never pictured the Rock being at the center of it.
Safdie (best known for films like Good Time and Uncut Gems made with his brother) will adapt the novel and direct. And though no production company or distributor has come on board yet, we’d imagine that changes quickly. Not only is Johnson, obviously, one of the most famous, bankable stars in the world, but he and Safdie are also about to release the UFC drama The Smashing Machine, which garnered major awards buzz out of the Venice Film Festival. You wouldn’t normally think that you go from a brutal, violent UFC drama to a weird, fantastical fantasy, but it certainly sounds like a more bankable idea.
Here’s how Amazon describes Lizard Music, which, for those of us who haven’t read it, just might make you want to order a copy:
Things Victor loves: pizza with anchovies, grape soda, B movies aired at midnight, the evening news. And with his parents off at a resort and his older sister shirking her babysitting duties, Victor has plenty of time to indulge himself and to try a few things he’s been curious about. Exploring the nearby city of Hogboro, he runs into a curious character known as the Chicken Man (a reference to his companion, an intelligent hen named Claudia who lives under his hat). The Chicken Man speaks brilliant nonsense, but he seems to be hip to the lizard musicians (real lizards, not men in lizard suits) who’ve begun appearing on Victor’s television after the broadcast of the late-late movie. Are the lizards from outer space? From “other space”? Together Victor and the Chicken Man, guided by the able Claudia, journey to the lizards’ floating island, a strange and fantastic place that operates with an inspired logic of its own.
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