Earlier this year, Dwayne Johnson announced his “wild and unpredictable” childhood was receiving the sitcom treatment thanks to NBC. With Nahnatchka Khan at the helm – Don’t Trust The Bitch In Apartment 23, Fresh Off The Boat – this upcoming series has since been dubbed Young Rock and will hopefully follow in the footsteps of Everybody Hates Chris.
“Just imagine me at 15 in downtown Nashville, listening to honky-tonk, buying my first car from a crackhead for $70 – I did talk him down so I was a pretty good negotiator,” says Johnson.
“Then we go into high school years… I became a University of Miami football star, until I got beat out of my position by a guy by the name of Warren Sapp, who went on to become one of the greatest defensive tackles of all time.”
More recently – as in literally a few days ago – Dwayne Johnson announced three (3) fresh-faced talents have officially been cast to portray the titular young Rock (Pebble?). Adrian Groulx will play a 10-year-old Johnson; Bradley Constant is set to take the reins from the age of 15 onwards; and rounding out the adolescent development will be Uli Latukefu for the role of an almost-adult Johnson.
In terms of his family, Ana Tuisila has been cast as Johnson’s grandmother Lia Maivia, Stacey Leilua as his mother Ata Johnson, while Joseph Lee Anderson will portray his late father – a pioneer of modern professional wrestling, first black champion in WWE history, International Pro Wrestling Hall of Famer – Rocky Johnson.
Young Rock has already received an 11-episode order and is currently scheduled to premiere sometime in 2021.
