Dwayne Johnson Transforms Completely in First Look at ‘The Smashing Machine’
Dwayne Johnson looks almost unrecognizable in the first look for his new movie The Smashing Machine, according to Vanity Fair.
The upcoming biographical sports drama is written, directed, co-produced, and edited by Benny Safdie. Johnson stars as former amateur wrestler and MMA fighter Mark Kerr, while Emily Blunt plays Kerr’s then-wife, Dawn Staples. The film also features Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten, and Oleksandr Usyk in supporting roles.
The film is set to premiere in the main competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2025, where it is nominated for the Golden Lion.
It will also screen at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2025, and will be released in the United States by A24 on October 3, 2025. The first trailer was released on April 29, 2025.
Johnson told Vanity Fair that the project was exactly the kind of role he had been looking for. “I was so hungry for an opportunity to do something raw and gritty and rip myself open. And all of a sudden, Smashing Machine comes along,” he said.
The project has been in the works for several years. Johnson first watched the 2002 HBO documentary The Smashing Machine, which explored Kerr’s MMA career and his struggles with painkiller addiction. Over time, he got to know Kerr as their careers overlapped. “I lost a lot of my friends to addiction and to suicide—in the late ’90s, early-to-mid 2000s, there were a lot of untimely, very early deaths,” Johnson said.
He connected to Kerr’s story of overcoming challenges and was drawn to his complex personality, a gentle giant with a reputation for brutality in the ring.
After seeing Benny and Josh Safdie’s 2019 film Uncut Gems, Johnson reached out to Benny about making a movie about Kerr.
The pandemic delayed the project, but neither Johnson nor Safdie stopped thinking about it. Benny Safdie told Vanity Fair, “Dwayne felt so deeply about it, it was something I couldn’t shake.” After working on separate projects, Safdie returned to the idea, inspired in part by spending time on the set of Oppenheimer with Emily Blunt, one of Johnson’s close friends.
The cast includes Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr, Emily Blunt as Dawn Staples, Ryan Bader as Mark Coleman, Bas Rutten as himself, Oleksandr Usyk as Igor Vovchanchyn, Lyndsey Gavin as Elizabeth Coleman, Satoshi Ishii as Enson Inoue, James Moontasri as Akira Shoji, Yoko Hamamura as Kazuyuki Fujita, Stephen Quadros as himself.
Paul Cheng as Masaaki Satake, Cyborg Abreu as Fábio Gurgel, Andre Tricoteux as Paul Varelans, Marcus Aurélio as Mestre Hulk, Whitney Moore as Jacqueline, Paul Lazenby as Hans Nijman, Olga Dzyurak as Vovchanchyn’s translator, Eric Odbaatar as Pride FC Cornerman, and Zoe Kosovic as McKenzie Coleman.
With its world premiere at Venice, a Toronto screening, and an October U.S. release approaching, audiences can soon see Johnson’s dramatic transformation into Kerr. The new trailer shows the intense physical and emotional journey that the actor underwent for this highly anticipated film.
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