Dwayne Johnson Is Almost Unrecognizable In First Look At His MMA Movie

In the more immediate run of upcoming Dwayne Johnson movies, the world can look forward to the occasional WWE Superstar mixing it up with the holiday action flick Red One. While that’s a more traditional offering from Johnson’s filmography, he actually has an A24 picture coming in the future that'll also put his athleticism on display: the MMA biopic The Smashing Machine.

Though we still don’t have a release date for that film, we have our first look at Johnson as MMA legend Mark Kerr; and he’s almost unrecognizable. What we know about The Smashing Machine has somewhat prepared us for Johnson’s transformation. However, even knowing the difference in their physical appearance still left the door open for a pretty impressive look at how he’s changed for director Benny Safdie’s still undated biopic.

Courtesy of A24 and Dwayne Johnson's official social media presence, we can share that photo with you below:

I don’t use the word “unrecognizable” lightly, especially for a face so familiar as Johnson's, but I did a bit of a double take when looking at this photo from The Smashing Machine. Not only is Emily Blunt partially obscured by the angle which she’s shown in this picture, but looking at Johnson in the corner had me thinking he was someone else.

To be completely honest, I thought that was Jon Bernthal sitting in the corner upon first glance. That's not a knock to either man in discussion, but the presumed facial prosthetics that are reshaping Dwayne Johnson in the photo presented do quite a job.

I can totally see why Dwayne would need to alter his appearance in some shape, as his easily recognizable face is a bit of a contrast to the man he's playing. For reference, here’s a photo of Mark Kerr in his MMA days:

It's almost strange to say that Dwayne Johnson, through his transformed appearance in his first A24 movie, actually looks more like Mark Kerr than The Rock, as it were. It’s kind of fitting that Benny Safdie would be helming this picture, as his co-directing effort on Uncut Gems brought the world an Adam Sandler performance that is still an Oscar-worthy take to this day.

Between that and the photo above showing how much Johnson has put into looking the part, The Smashing Machine looks even more promising. So maybe we can get a release date soon, so the hype machine can learn how long it needs to keep running? Especially because that sort of news would, in theory, bring us closer to the first trailer showing us how The Rock's performance feels in practice.

I know that's not how it works though, because we're still not quite sure when The Smashing Machine will release. However, there’s still plenty of upcoming A24 movies to look forward to in the meantime. Not to mention, the world of 2024 movies is also plentiful with offerings from all over, sports-based or otherwise.