Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Netflix film to resume shooting amid coronavirus pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused several Hollywood films to be put on hold or postponed – one of which is Netflix’s “Red Notice.” While shooting began early in the year, production shut down due to the massive outbreak of coronavirus in the United States.

However, actor and former wrestler Dwayne Johnson (also known as “The Rock”) has announced that while the pandemic continues to sweep across the nation, his upcoming film will resume shooting in mid-September.

The film, a partnership between Netflix and Johnson’s production company Seven Bucks Productions, will continue shooting in what is referred to as a “quarantine bubble,” where the entire cast and crew will be living and working together until filming is completed.

The announcement was officially made on Sunday by Johnson himself via Instagram to his 192.4 million followers.

Johnson’s decision comes shortly after the National Basketball Association (NBA) restarted operations in Orlando on Friday. In what they refer to as the “bubble,” all of the players are now living, playing and practicing basketball in an enclosed environment.

The 48-year-old actor gave credit to the NBA for giving advice to his team and Netflix on how to implement an effective and safe “quarantine bubble” for his project. However, Johnson also shared his concern for the difficulty of returning back to work amidst the pandemic saying, “The tricky thing about this is whether you’re in production of movies like I do. Or sports like the NBA. Or any job that you guys have all around the world. The tricky thing is this is all new. There’s no real historical data and research, facts and data that we can glean information from. There’s no blueprint here. We’re in a beta phase every step of the way so it’s very challenging. But I’m very confident the bubble we’re going to create, the quarantining, the sequestering, the multiple layers of health and safety practice and new measures that we’re going to be implementing. Extremely aggressive by the way, which you have to be."

Although Johnson did not disclose how much of the film was left to shoot, it is expected to resume in Atlanta, Georgia, where cases for COVID-19 are still on the rise with the state surpassing 200,000 cases on August 5.

Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who also directed, “Central Intelligence” and “Skyscraper,” the action-comedy thriller has been estimated to cost between US$125-150 million to produce and will star Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot.

Although the film is expected to release this year on November 13, it will most likely be postponed to release early next year instead.

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