WWE Rejects Claims The Rock Was Late For WrestleMania 40
WWE rubbishes reports that the Final Boss was late for his 'Mania Night 1 match.
Following a report from TheWrap yesterday that claimed Dwayne Johnson's lateness caused huge delays and spiralling costs on his upcoming movie, Red One, this story also notes how Johnson's "chronic lateness" had an impact on WWE WrestleMania 40.
TheWrap's Umberto Gonzalez - a known scooper with a fantastic reputation for breaking stories - states that the Final Boss arrived three hours late before his 'Mania 40 Night 1 main event that pitted the Rock and Roman Reigns against Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins.
On this matter, WWE EVP for Talent Relations and Head of Communications Chris Legentil put out the following statement to refute these WrestleMania claims:
"Dwayne was not only on time for WrestleMania, he was hours early to help with rehearsal - and a pleasure to work with throughout the entire run."
Away from these WrestleMania 40 claims, the Rock was more than two hours late for a scheduled appearance at WWE World as part of the wider WrestleMania Week celebrations and promotion. That late arrival was put down to traffic and other WWE-related commitments.
As for Red One - due to release this November - TheWrap reports that Dwayne Johnson was "seven to eight hours" late to set on average per day and missed several entire days of production. Not just did this force the crew to shoot around Johnson in his absence, industry insiders also claim that this caused the Red One production costs to increase by a mammoth $50 million. On top of that, this story has a bizarre sidenote of the Great One urinating in bottles on set rather than using the restroom, with this viewed as a time-saving technique where Johnson would have the production crew remove and empty these bottles.