In the arcade game Rampage, players controlled a giant gorilla, lizard or werewolf destroying cities. When you die, the creatures revert to their human form and walk off screen, unless you insert more quarters to continue. The movie adaptation does not take the mutated humans route, although one aborted version did consider it.
“There was a pitch about the idea and it never got further than that pitch,” director Brad Peyton told Bloody Disgusting. “I just found it hard to relate to that in terms of just what would that really be. Tone is a big thing for me. I want these movies to be fun. People use the word absurd but I also think it’s important to ground them slightly so that some of the emotion can be real.”
Peyton nixed the mutant human idea. “That I found difficult to buy into,” Peyton said.
“You’re making a werewolf movie at that point. That’s not how I saw it.”
In the film, Dwayne Johnson plays Davis Okoye, friend and trainer of George the gorilla (performance capture by Jason Liles). It was important to him too that Rampage not succumb to the curse of video game movies.
“We’re all very aware, I think, going in of the video game curse that has been rampant throughout Hollywood over the years,” Johnson said in a press conference.
“I made Doom so I know. I have lived the curse.
“I think it was probably just a matter of being aware of the movie we were making and not trying to be anything else than what we were and what we are. What we are is a big fun ride.”
Fans of the video game should be happy about a few Easter eggs in Rampage.
“People should definitely look closely in Claire and Brett’s office,” Peyton said. “If you think about it, you can ask yourself the question: why did they call it Project Rampage? What was the influence there? I don’t want to get too meta or crazy but it was just an opportunity to have some fun.”
Villainess Claire Wyden (Malin Akerman) is wearing a red dress. Does she look familiar to any of you hardcore gamers?
“That was our big homage to the video game,” Johnson said. “In the video game, famously as the monsters go on their total destruction, there’s a lady in a red dress. Sometimes she gets away and sometimes she gets eaten. [She] was the homage.”
Other Easter eggs may have to wait for the DVD. Peyton shot a post-credits sequence that was ultimately cut. He is lobbying for it to be included in the home video releases.
“We went down the road of creating one and I really liked it,” Peyton said. “In fact, my girlfriend’s parents were in it so I was really bummed out I had to tell them we weren’t going to do it. We ultimately chose to not do a tag, I think largely because we wanted this to be an encapsulated story. The beginning, middle, and end of this felt like this was a satisfying adventure unto itself. If we decide to do a sequel or anything later, it’s better not to set up this tag too heavily. Ultimately we decided not to do it. I’m really torn because my girlfriend’s parents were in it, it was really cool. I thought it was a really well-executed tag but ultimately we decided not to so that we weren’t leaning in any direction for the future.”
Rampage opens April 13.
