Dwayne Johnson Responds After The Smashing Machine Opens to Career-Worst $5.9 Million: Focus on Story, Not the Box Office
One film, one role, a life transformed—inside the story a star says reshaped everything on and off screen.
Well, this is not the kind of opening weekend The Rock is used to. After The Smashing Machine stumbled out of the gate, Dwayne Johnson jumped on Instagram to talk about it, praise his director, and basically say: you do the work, the box office will do what it does.
The numbers (and the context)
- Domestic opening weekend: $5.9 million
- Release date: October 3
- Production budget: $50 million
- For Johnson, that $5.9M is a career-worst opening
- By comparison: his previous big-screen outing, Disney's Moana 2, opened to $139.8 million and went on to become the third-highest-grossing movie of 2024
What Johnson is saying
Johnson penned a long thank-you to people who showed up opening weekend, and then leaned into the part he can control: his performance. He is clearly proud of the work and even more effusive about his director, Benny Safdie.
'You can not control box office results - but what I realized you can control is your performance, and your commitment to completely disappear and go elsewhere.'
He calls transforming for Safdie an honor, thanks him for believing in him, and says the film changed his life. He signs off with gratitude, respect, and what he calls 'radical empathy' — and a simple 'dj'.
The movie itself
The Smashing Machine has Johnson playing real-life wrestling and MMA legend Mark Kerr, with Emily Blunt as Kerr's girlfriend Dawn Staples. It is Benny Safdie's solo directing debut; up to now he has been best known for co-directing movies like Uncut Gems with his brother Josh.
Blunt, who last teamed with Johnson on Jungle Cruise, told GamesRadar+ this was a jump into very different territory for both of them, describing it as the polar opposite of their last go-round. Inside baseball note: this is The Rock doing the full-on transformation thing for a Safdie drama, not a four-quadrant crowd-pleaser, which partly explains the box office disconnect.
Bottom line
The Smashing Machine is out now in theaters. The debut was rough, but Johnson is not ducking it — he is doubling down on the performance and on Safdie. Whether the box office turns around is another story, but the pivot he is making is the story right now.