In between meals and food comas this weekend, you might have come across the news that Dwayne ‘The Rock” Johnson had finally decided on the facial hair and accoutrements for his Fast 8 character Luke Hobbs. Johnson provided that “exclusive first look” himself—because he is his own best cheerleader/PR hack—which included a stream-of-consciousness caption in which he pondered the future of his character, be it a spin-off or just his final ride. And in the midst of all that conjecture was the hashtag #1Savage, which seemed to be unrelated to the rest of Johnson’s “disruptive” spiel, but did recall this earlier Instagram post from Johnson, in which he teased a 2017 collaboration with Shane Black, whom we know is directing Doc Savage.
Now the cat’s fully out of the gym bag, as Variety reports that Johnson will play the pulp hero and non-Kryptonian superman. While stumping for The Nice Guys, Black declared his intentions to cast the Central Intelligence star as the Man Of Bronze in the feature film, an offer that Johnson has enthusiastically accepted, and already shared a new Instagram post about:
The actor appears flattered (if not surprised) that he’s been asked to play a “perfect human specimen.” But the character of Clark Savage Jr., a brilliant scientist and inventor with considerable athletic prowess and many other skills, was certainly that, thanks to the experiments conducted by a team of scientists led by his father. Johnson said he and Black worked out some of the story details over the weekend, though he failed to mention whether his iteration of Doc Savage would wear a wallet chain, or whether he’d also have a mother named Martha.