Judging by The Tomorrow War trailer, this is why J.K. Simmons got so ripped

Way back in 2016, photos of J.K. Simmons, with veins exploding from his biceps, working a pair of dumbbells sent the Internet into a tailspin. Fainting couches across the nation were littered with people suffering from a major touch of the vapors. Many assumed, understandably, that the workout regiment was in preparation for Justice League, a movie in which we never see Simmons pecks, delts, or tris. Covered head-to-toe in drab office wear as Commissioner Gordon, audiences rebelled against the film, leading to poor reviews, underwhelming box office, the Snyder Cut, etc.—or, at least, that’s how I remember it.

It turns out all those pushups weren’t to lift a bloody log off Batman’s broken body. They were in service of The Tomorrow War. Perhaps using some of the technology from the film’s time-traveling plot, and judging by those traps of his, Simmons is looking, pardon my French, jacked as fuck in the final trailer for The Tomorrow War. Simmons plays Chris Pratt’s estranged father, who helps him fight some future bugs in the future after being enlisted to go fight the bugs in the past. Again, it’s a time travel thing.

Here’s the full plot synopsis:

In The Tomorrow War, the world is stunned when a group of time travelers arrive from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message: Thirty years in the future mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians from the present to be transported to the future and join the fight. AMong those recruited is high school teacher and family man Dan Forester (Chris Pratt). Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist (Yvonne Strahovski) and his estranged father (J.K. Simmons) in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet.

Aside from Simmons, The Tomorrow War looks like another sci-fi actioner, living somewhere between fellow “tomorrow” title-haver The Edge Of Tomorrow and Tenet. Furthermore, the trailer doesn’t reveal which Pratt we’re getting: the cocky moron Peter Quill or the forever frowner from Jurassic World. There are some glimmers of hope, though; Veep’s Sam Richardson and The Doughboys’ Mike “The Spoonman” Mitchell, for instance. There’s also the Chris McKay of it all. McKay’s only directed one movie, the fantastic Lego Batman Movie. It stands to reason that The Tomorrow War is funnier than its trailer lets on. Fingers crossed.

The Tomorrow War debuts exclusively on Amazon Prime on July 2, 2021.