John Cena to replace Dwayne Johnson in Robert Ludlum adaptation The Janson Directive
Dwayne Johnson is a very busy man, what with the Welcome To The Jungle sequel, Disney’s Jungle Cruise, and whatever movies he’s working on that aren’t about jungles, so he has been forced to step back from the Robert Ludlum adaptation The Janson Directive. According to Variety, though, he has already found another big wrestle-man to fill his spot, announcing on Instagram that John Cena will now be starring in his place. Johnson is still on board as a producer, and he joked in his Instagram post that he’ll remind Cena how “devastating” his elbow drops are if he screws up.
The story is about a former special-ops soldier who leaves the military to become a “private security consultant” who only kills people who deserve it, and the last thing we heard about The Janson Directive was that Universal was planning to connect it to the Bourne series in some way—as those movies are also based on Ludlum books. We don’t know if that’s still the plan, but it might be a little silly now to see a tiny man like Matt Damon stepping out of the shadows to talk to a true human mountain like Cena about “the Robert Ludlum Initiative” after the credits. Either way, The Janson Directive is still a painfully dull name, so at least putting John Cena on the poster will make up for that a bit.