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Is Dwayne Johnson action movie Skyscraper a blueprint for US-China co-production despite being a box-office flop in America?
- Skyscraper, co-produced by Universal in the US and the Chinese-owned Legendary Pictures, made almost a third of its US$304 million worldwide box office in China
- While the plot was unoriginal, the film offered meaty roles for its Asian actors, ‘paid respect to Hong Kong and Asian cinema’ and was stunningly shot
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Skyscraper, a 2018 action film starring Dwayne Johnson, might not look like a cinematic trailblazer, but interesting patterns start to reveal themselves when you underneath the surface.
Written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber (Central Intelligence), the film – so indebted to US film franchise Die Hard it was jokingly called “Die Hard in a building” – was co-produced by Universal and the Chinese-owned Legendary Pictures.
Because of this, Skyscraper secured a very rare summer release in China, where it made almost a third of its US$304 million worldwide box office.
The plot of the film is rather less interesting than the series it took inspiration from. The prologue shows a hostage rescue gone wrong, in which FBI agent Will Sawyer (Johnson) loses part of his leg and meets his wife, Sarah (Neve Campbell), a nurse, in the trauma unit.
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