Deadline is reporting that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has signed on to play the lead role of Hawaiian King Kamehameha in the upcoming movie “The King”, being directed by Robert Zemeckis (“Forrest Gump”, “Castaway”, “Back to the Future”).
The report adds King Kamehameha “is the legendary king who was the first to unite the warring Hawaiian islands, which fulfilled the prophecy that surrounded his fabled life since birth. He took control of Hawaii’s destiny, and gave the islanders leverage in advancing the culture in trading with the foreign ships from Europe that began showing up on the shores of islands that must have seemed like paradise, albeit a sometimes dangerous one as explorers like Simon Metcalfe and Captain James Cook discovered before Kamehameha forcibly unified the islands.”
The part of the King is reportedly a dream role for The Rock, as the author of the Deadline report notes The Rock once mentioned Kamehameha as a dream role for him when he was shooting a small role in one of his first movies, “The Scorpion King”.
Seven Bucks Productions’ Johnson, Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia are producing the movie, with FlynnPictureCo’s Beau Flynn, Zemeckis and Wallace. The movie will be distributed by Warner Bros and New Line, and there is no word as of this writing as to when production is scheduled to begin.
Deadline