Plot details emerge for video game adaptation Rampage

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Production is currently underway on a cinematic adaptation of the 1986 arcade game RAMPAGE, a film that will see Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson going to battle with three giant monsters; mutated versions of a gorilla, a reptile, and a wolf. 

As we've watched this project come together, we've never gotten a real plot synopsis, all we've heard is that the movie will feature the three monsters destroying cities and national monuments, just like they do in the games. We have learned some minor details about the characters in the film, like the fact that Johnson is playing a zoologist. His co-stars include Naomie Harris as "a geneticist with a moral streak", Malin Akerman as "a calculating head of a tech company", P.J. Byrne as a scientist, Marley Shelton as a scientist / astronaut, Joe Manganiello as the leader of a private military group, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as a government agent named Russell, who "rolls with serious swagger and attitude". Also in the cast are Breanne Hill, Jake Lacy, Jack Quaid, and Matt Gerald as… well, their casting announcements didn't say.

Zoologists, scientists, government agents, military men, these are all the type of characters you would expect to see in a movie like this. But what's the story?

Splash Report has found out. According to them, the script crafted by Ryan Engle, Carlton Cuse, Ryan Condal, and Adam Sztykiel tells the following tale:

The first privately owned space station is destroyed by a mysterious experiment done onboard. Three canisters from the crash land on Earth. One lands in the gorilla enclosure at the San Diego Zoo, the other in the plains of Wyoming and the last one in the Florida Everglades. The Griffin Technologies Group, headed by two siblings (Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy), tries to destroy any evidence of wrongdoing before the government finds out. It’s too late because the canisters have infected a gorilla named George, a wolf in Wyoming and an alligator. They start evolving and growing exponentially. To cover their tracks, the Griffin idiots decide to unleash a beacon that will make all three large animals head toward one destination: their head office located in the Willis Tower in Chicago.

The site also dug up some more information on Johnson's character, learning that he's "an ex-Marine who's now a primatologist that raised George at the San Diego Zoo. He taught the ape sign language, and they share a special bond." 

They learned an extra detail about Naomie Harris's character as well: she has been fired from her job at Griffin Tech.

Overall, RAMPAGE sounds like pretty standard stuff, but there are some interesting things revealed in that plot description. We're getting an origin for the monsters, some human villains added into the mix, and with Johnson's character having a history with the gorilla it sounds like that side of things is going to have a touch of KING KONG-esque heart… This is speculation, but maybe Johnson will even be able to convince the gorilla to turn against his wolf and alligator buddies.

RAMPAGE is being directed by Brad Peyton, who previously worked with Johnson on SAN ANDREAS and JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND.