Dwayne Johnson Transforms Into a 70-Year-Old Man for Lizard Music

Dwayne Johnson is nearly unrecognizable as a 70-year-old man in new set photos from Lizard Music, directed by Benny Safdie. The images, spotted in Brooklyn on Tuesday, October 20, show Johnson as the character known as “Chicken Man,” according to Variety and ComingSoon.

The photos show Johnson with gray hair, a scruffy gray beard and facial wrinkles created with prosthetics, wearing a tan bucket hat and coat, per ComingSoon. Khaleej Times, citing Variety, reports that he held a slice of pizza beside co-star Theo Clark Leber, who carried a large stuffed lizard. Outlook India adds that the look includes a long trench coat, a silly tie and chunky sneakers.

The prosthetics are by Kazu Hiro, who also worked on Tom Cruise’s look in Digger, per ComingSoon. Johnson told Deadline at D23 in August that he has “five hours of makeup every day,” and said of the film, “Imagine Willy Wonka but from the mind of Benny Safdie,” according to Outlook India.

Lizard Music adapts Daniel Pinkwater’s children’s book. A young boy finds strange lizard musicians on late-night TV and befriends an odd man who keeps an elderly chicken, per ComingSoon. Safdie wrote the script, per Outlook India.

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The cast includes Rachel McAdams, Colman Domingo, Jeff Goldblum, Alicia Silverstone, Regina Hall, David Krumholtz and Tim Heidecker, with Theo Clark Leber as the boy. Amazon MGM Studios releases the film through United Artists, with Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt producing. It is scheduled for theaters on December 25, 2027.

Johnson reunites with Safdie, who directed him in The Smashing Machine. At the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025, Johnson said Safdie pitched him the film and that after about 45 minutes he told the director, “I am your Chicken Man.” He also said he had already lost much of the 30 pounds of muscle he gained for The Smashing Machine, per Variety.

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