Dwayne Johnson's The Smashing Machine Has Record Low Box Office Opening

The Smashing Machine is projected to hit a record box office low for A-list movie star Dwayne Johnson. Dwayne Johnson movies are never guaranteed smash hits, but the WWE wrestler turned Hollywood superstar has multiple billion-dollar titles under his belt (including Furious 7 and Moana 2), and his movies have collectively grossed more than $15 billion.

Per Deadline, as of Saturday morning, his new Mark Kerr biopic The Smashing Machine is projected to earn a 3-day opening weekend of $6.2 million at the domestic box office. The MMA movie, which was directed by Benny Safdie, is thus set to earn the lowest opening weekend ever for a wide release with Dwayne Johnson in a lead role.

Johnson’s previous record-holder was the 2010 action movie Faster, which debuted with $8.5 million and went on to gross $35.8 million worldwide. If The Smashing Machine continues on its current trajectory relative to Faster, it could leg out to a total considerably below its reported budget of $50 million.

What This Means For Dwayne Johnson

While this low opening weekend strikes a blow to the perception of how much of a draw Dwayne Johnson is at the box office, there are a lot of complicating factors that will likely prevent 2025’s The Smashing Machine from being a legitimate flop.

The first is that the movie is a biographical drama, so it is not designed to perform at the level of Johnson’s IP blockbusters such as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and The Fate of the Furious. Quite a few of his other movies that opened below $20 million are similarly small-scale non-IP titles, including Snitch ($13.2 million) and Gridiron Gang ($14.4 million).

Additionally, his new outing has been performing well critically, with The Smashing Machine reviews earning it a Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 73%. It has also generated a great deal of Oscar buzz for Johnson after its premiere at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival.

If it does become a major Oscar contender, this will not only give it a second life in theaters during the 2025-2026 awards season, this will alleviate the majority of its budget considerations, because an Oscar nomination would be another feather in the cap of its production company and distributor, A24, which would likely be deemed worth the expenditure.

Dwayne Johnson’s 2026 follow-up to The Smashing Machine is also a movie that is more or less guaranteed to perform well: the live-action remake of Moana. In the wake of both Moana 2 and the live-action Lilo & Stitch surpassing $1 billion, it seems set to be a hit that will reassert his ability to connect with theatrical audiences.

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