With Dwayne Johnson’s ‘Rampage’ coming to theaters in a just a few weeks (April 20th to be exact), the studio has sent the star out on the standard promotional tour, with Johnson hitting ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live‘ this week where he revealed a new clip from the film.
In the clip, we see some dialogue between Johnson’s character and the enormous gorilla, George, who has clearly been talked down and is now fighting with the humans against the giant wolf and crocodile terrorizing the city. Suddenly the crocodile appears, roaring at the pair, and they cower for a second, with Johnson even uttering a bleeped curse word. Then George’s courage comes back and he goes in to attack the crocodile, hitting the reptile with a piece of a building, a shot we have seen in the trailer before, and then the crocodile gets angry right before the clip ends.
When Kimmel graciously compliments the CGI in the movie, Johnson explains it was done by none other than WETA Digital:
“It was fantastic. We had Weta who obviously, as many of you know, created Lord of the Rings and Avatar. They were so inspired by this.”
Kimmel next asked if Johnson was shooting with a tennis ball or other elements as stand-ins for the CGI characters, and Johnson went on to explain that for ‘Rampage,’ everything was done with motion-capture, meaning the actor portraying George the gorilla, Jason Liles, could actually be on set with Johnson:
“A lot of times in CGI movies, there’s a tennis ball or a green screen. But in this movie, we used motion capture…We have somebody who studied gorillas and their movements, their mannerisms, their emotions for over a year. His name is Jason Liles. He’s six-foot-nine, he gets in this incredible suit, he has motion capture cameras everywhere, and he was my gorilla. He was my best friend George.”
Check out the clip for yourself below, and feel free to share your own thoughts on the CGI work, and whether it is enough to entice you to check out ‘Rampage’ when it hits theaters in the comments below!
