Dwayne Johnson’s bad year continues as Young Rock dies at NBC
The excellent Grand Crew has also ended after two seasons at the network
Aux News Rock
The last 12 months have been rough ones for The Rock, the brand. (That is, the public perception of Dwayne Johnson as one of the planet’s biggest movie stars, a contention that’s never been as clear-cut in terms of actual movie performance as it might seem, but which has persisted mostly through the man’s sheer smiling charisma and instant name recognition.) The biggest blip was, obviously, the disappointing box office performance of his starring superhero vehicle Black Adam last fall, which appears to have short-circuited a genuine effort to implant himself in the very heart of Warner Bros.’ flailing comic book movie universe. Now, The Big Man has taken another hit: The cancellation of the sitcom about his early life, Young Rock, at NBC.
This is per Variety, which reports that Young Rock was one of two half-hour comedies to get the axe at the network today, dying alongside the genuinely excellent Grand Crew. (Meanwhile, American Auto is still floating on the cancellation/renewal bubble; c’mon, NBC.) Young Rock starred Adrian Groulx, Bradley Constant, and Uli Latukefu as versions of Johnson at various points in his life. It also employed a completely bonkers framing device in which Johnson appeared as a slightly older version of himself, running for president in 2032, which feels like the sort of thing we’d make up to make fun of a vanity-focused concept like this. The series also starred Joseph Lee Anderson, Stacey Leilua, Ana Tuisila, and Matthew Willig, plus a large number of other performers from its various time eras—many of them playing some of the most famous wrestlers of the day.
Young Rock ultimately ran for three seasons on the network, with a steady drop in ratings each year. (The show’s last season, which ended back in February, was pulling about 1.5 million viewers every week.) Its cancellation is bad news for The Rock—who recently announced that he was returning to the loving, money-making embrace of the Fast And Furious franchise—but also for us, because now our spec script where Young Rock and Young Sheldon meet, quickly becoming best friends for life after a few misunderstandings/suplexes, is probably never going to get made.
49 Comments
Looks like Night Court is their only comedy left?
“It also employed a completely bonkers framing device in which Johnson appeared as a slightly older version of himself, running for president in 2032, which feels like the sort of thing we’d make up to make fun of a vanity-focused concept like this.”I can see Johnson telling himself this would be his launchpad to electoral glory a la The Former Guy. (Zelenskyy might be a better parallel, but I don’’t know if the Rock follows international politics that closely.)
lol It’s so funny watching stupid people talk about Zelensky. I would bet a million dollars you don’t know a fucking thing about Zelensky beyond what you’ve been told in propaganda. I would bet a million dollars you couldn’t name a single Ukrainian politician before the TV started telling you what you wanted to hear about Zelensky. Brainless chickenhawk idiot.
It’s amusing that your remark triggered our maybe-Moscow shill, even under his new troll account.
Perhaps the maybe-Kremlin troll gets triggered by reminders of not only Zelenskyy’s leadership, but his piano playing skills!
Jeezus, it took me awhile to realize it wasn’t the guy who played Young Rock that died.I liked Young Rock quite a bit, waaay more than I ever thought I would, but I quit watching before the end of the first season.
Some shows are just like that.
Just so you know you failed a real life IQ test. Watching a show called “Young Rock” means you are stupid. The audience for Young Rock is stupid, boring, shit, people. Stupid assholes like you degrade the culture and make the world a worse place. Idiot.
Your dad should’ve pulled out.
Weak troll.
Great name though. Like Obama, but “bomb ya(you)”. Really sharp, current stuff.They’re in another thread today complaining that people who have been ungreyed here are stupid and illiterate. It must suck that their stupid and illiterate posts continue to languish in the greys despite seemingly meeting the qualifications.
I mean, he’s right.
I’m shocked Am Auto hasn’t also been canned. I love the show, but almost nobody watched it, even with the Night Court lead-in.
People are watching Night Court? Huh.
Well, more than Am Auto.
I tried watching Night Court on streaming out of love for the franchise, but it was more of a… there’s three channels and this is the best thing on… kind of thing. So, I stopped after a few. I’m a big fan of Larroquette, but I have better uses for my time.Loved American Auto and streamed every episode via nbc.com.
There needs to be more Detroit content on American Auto. Doesn’t feel Detroit enough for me.
Bad news I guess but you could see it coming for a variety of reasons. One being the ratings numbers mentioned above but also, the show had run its course. They had wrapped up every story introduced over the course of the show’s run and covered all the details of Rock’s life before entering Hollywood, which was what the show was about. I mean I guess they could have just started making stuff up (they played fast and loose with some details anyway), but they had reached the end. Not every show should run for years and years.
They were already making tons stuff up.
There were wrestlers on that show that never met each other or couldn’t stand each other to the point that they would’ve killed each other in the same room.
Those could’ve been awesome stories to explore, but instead, The Rock thinks he’s always the bigger story.
He’s such a boring, unlikable, douchebag. He’s so stupid he is incapable of making anything entertaining.
It really felt like the show had ended on its own terms. They had even phased out the youngest Rock already! There was definitely more they could have done with the Rock going through the 90’s and 00’s, but the framing device had already started reaching for things to do. He’s not President, but let’s have him spend a season reaching out as an ambassador to a made-up country…for coffee?
Yea, and Randall Park was more or less disappearing because he had nothing to do.
Did they cover the depraved depths he’d sink to during his spiraling addiction to pickled eggs?
I hate pathetic loser celebrities like Dwayne and Lebron. Fucking egomaniac losers who thinks people give a shit about their boring lives. Pathetic how much losers like this want people to accept and love them. The Rock is such an insufferable douche. Everything about him screams tryhard, boring, stupid douche. Everything else he has done has been complete shit because he is too stupid to make anything meaningful.
If you’re thinking about committing suicide……please do it.
Seems like just yesterday this was a parody TV Show on the 30 Rock Quarantine Special that turned out to not be a joke after all. Is it time to finally bring back Bitch Hunter? Or at the very least Homonym? Come on NBC, what else do you have going on? It’s not like either of those shows would even need writers.
How bout Young 30 Rock?
Wouldn’t that be called 13 Rock?
Rural Juror as well. I mean Milf Island is already a thing so why not just green light everything from 30 Rock?
I checked out the moment I realized that it wasn’t a Cop Rock prequel.
I didn’t even knew this show existed.
I assumed the headline meant they backed out of making the first season. I didn’t realize they already did that, apparently a couple of years back.
Will there be time for a Young Sheldon crossover?
That is, the public perception of Dwayne Johnson as one of the planet’s biggest movie stars, a contention that’s never been as clear-cut in terms of actual movie performance as it might seem, but which has persisted mostly through the man’s sheer smiling charisma and instant name recognitionThat’s not really true. Dwayne’s had a rough year, but he was one of the only people who could topline a non-franchise movie like San Andreas or Central Intelligence and make it into a genuine hit. Sure most of his movies are some sort of IP but, well, ALL movies are some sort of IP anymore.
I think “was” is the operative word there.
Not a great show, but it had its charms. I really liked the casting of his parents. His mom especially, and I hope that lady finds more work because she seems so sweet.
It also, naturally, got a little more interesting once he got to WWE, and the oldest version of him was playing that part really well. But the casting of their other superstars? Woof…
yeah I know it would have been hard to find an exact replica, but the guy that played Andre the Giant was way to skinny. I mean, what was Big Show doing during production?
After that 1st sentence I am imagining a dejected little kid dropping his Dwayne The Rock doll or action figure or whatever and saying “You’re not ‘Dwayne The Rock; you’re ‘Dwayne The Brand’!”
Then he gets into drugs or something.
If I was Young Rock all I’d want to know is do I get to keep the fab leopard jacket?
I didn’t even know this show existed.
Sums it up, really.
Hmm. I went to the same high school as Dwayne Johnson, with two years overlap. I didn’t know him personally but I remember seeing him around, and hearing his name in the morning announcements for various wrestling and other sports mentions.I wonder if I should watch any Young Rock episodes to see if anything sounds familiar. XD
I was in Bethlehem PA for Thanksgiving in 1987. I’m sure I ran into you guys.
Dwayne Johnson’s bad yearYeah, how does he sleep at night?
I’m sure he does, but black Adam showed that Johnson is extremely image focused and does indeed have the ego to actually be hurt and a little crazy when his stuff doesn’t work. He was leaking insane financial reports to try to claim black Adam was somehow going to be profitable at less than 400 million worldwide. That’s not the behaviour of a relaxed Wolfcastle style “I sleep on a pile of money. I don’t care what you think.”
Johnson cannot reconcile the fact that he is uber famous, but do not have real star power to put people in the sets to watch his movies.Black Adam was a sad proof of that.A person so fixated on his image cannot really reconcile the harsh reality.Cheers
A quirky show like Young Rock, seems like it was mainly meant for a streaming network. Maybe Peacock or Paramount Plus. Plus the filming schedule could be more flexible since Johnson is involved with all kinds of random stuff, anyway.
I didn’t even know this show existed.
On an unrelated note: has anyone seen the end credits for Fast X? (dies of laughter).
So that ends Rock’s good year streak at what, 24?
Don’t forget about the USFL beating Rocky’s XFL ratings too…and the USFL is not good football.