Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson might be a household name, but that doesn’t mean all of his films are hits. His newest movie, The Smashing Machine, barely made a 10th of its budget in its opening weekend. It’s the actor’s worst opening weekend, despite the film featuring Johnson’s pivot to more dramatic roles. It’s the actor’s best role yet and could usher in an era where Johnson is actually a contender for awards like Best Actor at the Oscars.
The Smashing Machine is directed by Benny Safdie, who directed films like Uncut Gems with his brother before they split and started working on solo projects. The movie, which is a biopic about one of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s earliest fighters, earned a 72% from critics and a 77% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. Somehow, those positive reviews and Johnson’s performance weren’t enough to carry the film to box office success.
‘The Smashing Machine’ Is the Real-Life Story of Mark Kerr
In The Smashing Machine, Johnson plays Mark Kerr, a real-life mixed martial artist who won two UFC tournaments. Some of Kerr’s career was already captured in the 2002 HBO documentary The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr. The film and the documentary cover many of the same events, with Johnson even recreating scenes from the documentary, like explaining UFC to an older woman in a waiting room.
Johnson’s The Smashing Machine focuses on the two times Mark Kerr went to Japan to fight in the Pride Fighting Championships. The events were surrounded by difficult moments in Kerr’s life, which are highlighted in the film. He was living with his girlfriend, Dawn Staples, who’s played by Emily Blunt. He was also using opioids to ease his pain, causing side effects on his ability to fight. The Smashing Machine shows how Kerr rebounded with support from his fighting friend Mark Coleman, played by Ryan Bader.
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson Gives a Different Kind of Performance
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s performance as Mark Kerr is far from his typical roles. He’s not racing cars like in the Fast & Furious movies, he’s not exploring the jungle like he does in the Jumanji films, and he’s certainly not trying to be funny like his roles in Red Notice and Central Intelligence. The Smashing Machine is a rare dramatic role for Johnson, and one of his first times starring in a biographical movie.
It’s one of Johnson’s only performances where he doesn’t feel like he’s playing a version of himself, and that’s not just because he’s wearing makeup and prosthetics that make him look much different. Johnson’s not funny in The Smashing Machine, and he’s not focused on beating people up, either, and those are positives to his performance. He’s much more serious, devoting his full attention to portraying Mark Kerr as well as he can. It’s a dramatic role, allowing him to display emotions like anger, sadness, and enthusiasm. He doesn’t even feel out of place next to Emily Blunt, who’s used to these kinds of dramatic roles.
The Smashing Machine is a step in the right direction for Johnson’s career. Other WWE stars turned actors have been expressing their range recently — John Cena in Peacemaker and Dave Bautista in Knock at the Cabin, for example — so it was about time Johnson did the same. The actor didn’t let the film’s poor box office results ruin his dramatic turn, writing on Instagram, “In our storytelling world, you can’t control box office results — but what I realized you can control is your performance, and your commitment to completely disappear and go elsewhere. And I will run to that opportunity.” Let’s hope Johnson sticks to that mindset for at least a few more years.
‘The Smashing Machine’s Box Office Failure, Explained
During its first weekend in theaters, The Smashing Machine made just $6 million domestically and $110,000 outside the United States, according to Box Office Mojo. Even though it was brand new and starred Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, it was only the third-highest grossing movie that weekend. One Battle After Another made $11 million domestically the weekend of October 3, and Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl made $34 million. That’s not good for The Smashing Machine, which cost $50 million, according to Variety.
The fact that The Smashing Machine lost at the box office to a Taylor Swift album release isn’t too surprising. Even though she’s not known for her film career, she’s a Grammy-winning billionaire with a fan base massive enough to already bring her new album to record sales. It’s more surprising that The Smashing Machine made just over half of what One Battle After Another made in one weekend, considering the latter has already been out for a week.
There are multiple factors that make The Smashing Machine less appealing at the box office. The film is focused on mixed martial arts, which is a niche sport compared to sports like football and soccer. Some viewers might have been used to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s typical style of acting and might have been deterred by how dramatic the film looked. The film could also just require time and word of mouth to do better. The Smashing Machine is in theaters now, but it’s unclear for how long, as A24 might move the film to HBO Max quickly if it doesn’t start performing better.
- Release Date
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October 3, 2025
- Runtime
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123 minutes
- Director
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Benny Safdie