The Rock’s road to WrestleMania 43 may have just hit a major Hollywood roadblock.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is currently listed among the stars of “Fast Forever,” the next and final mainline installment in the Fast & Furious franchise, alongside Vin Diesel and Jason Statham. Now Diesel has revealed that filming is expected to begin in December — timing that could make a WrestleMania 43 match very difficult for The Rock to pull off. Speaking with Variety, Diesel revealed that the studio wants production underway before the end of the year.
“We start shooting in December, if I can make good on the request from the studio.”
That December start date is a big deal when it comes to The Rock’s WWE future. Major movie productions commonly require several months of filming, and a shoot beginning in December would also run directly through the holiday season. Even with a production break around Christmas and New Year’s, filming could potentially stretch well into the early months of 2027.
That puts The Rock on a brutal timeline if WWE wants him wrestling at WrestleMania 43. It isn’t simply a matter of Johnson finishing his scenes and showing up for WrestleMania weekend. If The Rock is going to wrestle another major WWE match, he would need time to get himself back into ring shape, train for the match, return to WWE television and build an actual storyline leading into the show. Doing that while filming a massive Fast & Furious movie would make an already complicated WrestleMania situation even harder.
Ringside News previously confirmed that WWE having an “if The Rock is available” scenario around WrestleMania is something that comes up almost every year. That has been the case for much of the last decade, because getting Johnson into a WrestleMania match involves far more than whether he happens to have that weekend open.
The creative has to work. The business terms have to work. His schedule has to line up. WWE also has to know what the storyline looks like before and after WrestleMania. Now, his movie schedule appears positioned directly in the middle of that process.
If “Fast Forever” starts filming in December and production lasts roughly four or five months, The Rock could theoretically still be working on the movie deep into WrestleMania season. A holiday break could stretch that timeline even further. That would leave very little room for him to finish filming, go through a serious wrestling training camp and return to WWE television for the kind of storyline a Rock match would demand.
Do you think The Rock can realistically film “Fast Forever” and still get ready to wrestle at WrestleMania 43, or does this make Roman Reigns vs. Oba Femi the more realistic direction? Let us know what you think and leave your feedback in the comments.
