Dwayne Johnson is one of the biggest action stars in the world now and can pretty much pick his projects, but he had to start somewhere. Meaning he starred in a decent amount of middling, forgettable action films. One of those films is Faster, which is currently trending on Paramount+ as the #2 film on the platform according to FlixPatrol.
Faster came out in 2010 and stars Dwayne Johnson as Driver, a man who has been planning to exact revenge for the murder of his brother. When he gets out of prison, two men are standing in his way — a corrupt cop and a hitman. Driver will have to evade these two men as he tracks down the killer.
Faster stars Dwayne Johnson along with Billy Bob Thorton, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Carla Gugino, Maggie Grace, Moon Bloodgood, Courtney Gains, John Cirigliano, Lester Speight, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Tom Berenger, Mike Epps, Xander Berkeley, Matt Gerald, Annie Corley, Jennifer Carpenter, and Michael Irby. The film is directed by George Tillman Jr. with a script co-written by Tony Gayton and Joe Gayton. It’s also safe to say that Faster wasn’t exactly a smash hit when it was released.
Faster didn’t land well with critics or audiences. It currently has a 42% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 52% from audiences. Not many people were interested in seeing it in theaters either, as it only made $35.6 million worldwide against a budget of $24 million.
It may be surprising nowadays for a Dwayne Johnson film to only make $35 million, but 2010 was right before Johnson became box office gold. Before Faster, Johnson was known for his WWE career and films like Tooth Fairy and The Scorpion King. In other words, he wasn’t the action superstar we know today.
However, the early 2010s were a bit of a turning point for Dwayne Johnson’s meteoric rise to Hollywood superstardom. The year after Faster came out, Johnson starred in Fast Five as Hobbs. Hobbs would be a massive role for him as he would appear in multiple Fast and Furious films along with his own spin-off Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw.
After Fast Five, the hit movies would come continuously for Dwayne Johnson. He would follow up that film with movies like G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Pain & Gain, Fast & Furious 6, Hercules, Furious 7, San Andreas, Moana, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and more. While all of his films weren’t always critical successes, they certainly pulled in a lot of money at the box office.
Dwayne Johnson’s run of box office gold finally lost some steam last year with the release of the DC film Black Adam. While Johnson had worked hard to get this film to come to fruition, it didn’t quite perform up to expectations. So much so that his character will no longer be a part of the DCU that is being molded by the new James Gunn and Peter Safran leadership.
Of course, that isn’t going to slow Dwayne Johnson down. He has plenty of projects on the way. And, if you want to revisit a simpler time, you can check out Faster now on Paramount+.
source:giantfreakinrobot.com
