After Warner Bros. and New Line won the auction for The King movie, Dwayne Johnson (Jungle Cruise, Hobbs and Shaw) will finally get to play Hawaiian King Kamehameha in the project directed by Oscar winner Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Flight, Allied) and written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Randall Wallace (Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, Pearl Harbor), Deadline has confirmed.
Kamehameha is the legendary king who was the first to unite the warring Hawaiian islands, which fulfilled the prophecy that surrounded his fabled life since birth. He took control of Hawaii’s destiny and gave the Islanders leverage in advancing the culture in trading with the foreign ships from Europe that began showing up on the shores of islands that must have seemed like paradise, albeit a sometimes dangerous one as explorers like Simon Metcalfe and Captain James Cook discovered before Kamehameha forcibly unified the islands.
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The outlet notes that Johnson has always dreamed of one day playing Kamehameha to honor his roots and that the role has been on his mind for years. While filming the hit Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Johnson and his production team felt it was time to make the dream come true. They sought out Wallace who then the script to Zemeckis who quickly became attached to the project. In 2017, a Hawaiian Kahu (priest) even held a ceremony in Hawaii blessing the project as well as Johnson, Wallace, and Garcia.
The King will be produced by Zemeckis, Wallace, Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions alongside Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia, and with FlynnePictureCo’s Beau Flynn. The project is set to begin production in 2020.
