After many years of his nuanced acting capabilities being consistently brought into question, Dwayne Johnson has finally silenced the doubters with his recent, stunning performance as Mark Kerr in the Benny Safdie-directed The Smashing Machine. Starring alongside yet another eye-catching turn from Emily Blunt, Johnson has, against all odds, thrown his name into the race for the Best Actor prize at next year’s Academy Awards, certainly leaving himself likely to pick up a nomination. Sadly, a performance of this quality wasn’t enough to see The Smashing Machine shine at the box office, with the film flopping and exiting theaters almost as soon as it arrived.
With that in mind, perhaps audiences are yearning more for the critically panned, albeit entertaining slice of Johnson that makes up most of his filmography to date. Thankfully for those people, one of the actor’s most divisive performances has joined a new streaming site this November. The Scorpion King, the 2002 fantasy spin-off starring Johnson, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Steven Brand, has joined the slate of new arrivals on Starz this November. The Scorpion King, like many other entries in Johnson’s catalog, faced both audience and critical backlash upon arrival almost 25 years ago, receiving just 40% from critics and 37% from audiences on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. For those yet to see the movie, the synopsis reads:
“Inspired by the legendary Egyptian warrior, “The Scorpion King” is set 5000 years ago in the notorious city of Gomorrah, where an evil ruler is determined to lay waste to all the nomadic peoples of the desert. The few remaining tribes, never natural allies, have to unite or perish. Knowing their enemy relies on the visions of a sorcerer, they hire a skilled assassin, Mathayus (Dwayne Johnson), to eliminate the visionary.”
Was ‘The Scorpion King’ a Box Office Hit?
Both critics and audiences might have received the movie negatively, but The Scorpion King‘s box office performance surely made up for it. Made for a reported budget of $60 million, the fantasy flick returned an impressive $165 million worldwide, thanks in no small part to Johnson being at the height of his WWE fame. Split between a domestic haul of $90 million and a further $75 million from overseas markets, the movie finished 2002 as the year’s 31st highest-grossing movie.
The Scorpion King is streaming on Starz. Stay tuned to Collider for more streaming updates.
- Release Date
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April 12, 2002
- Runtime
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92minutes
- Prequel(s)
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The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior
