'Moana' Star Dwayne Johnson Spotted Filming ‘Lizard Music’ on NYC Streets

Dwayne Johnson has spent the past few years steadily expanding what a Dwayne Johnson movie can look like. After a long run of big-budget action films, he has been leaning into riskier, more unconventional roles. His latest project may be the most surprising yet, and a new set video shows just how far he has gone.

The star reunited with director Benny Safdie after their previous collaboration, ‘The Smashing Machine’, in which Johnson played MMA fighter Mark Kerr. That film underperformed at the box office, but it clearly didn’t sour the partnership. Their follow-up is ‘Lizard Music’, a live-action and CGI fantasy adapted from Daniel Pinkwater’s 1976 children’s novel.

Now CoveredGeekly has shared a video of Johnson filming the movie on a New York street, with the post noting that it arrives in theaters on December 25, 2027. The clip, which comes from Talent Agency Guide, shows a bustling block beneath elevated train tracks and asks viewers whether they would walk past The Rock without realizing it. Given how different Johnson looks, it’s a fair question.

Johnson, who is 54, was spotted filming in New York on October 20 with curly gray hair, a tan overcoat, and a bucket hat. Photos show him walking with a slice of pizza alongside his young co-star Theo Clark Leber, who carries an oversized lizard plush. Reports credit makeup artist Kazu Hiro, who recently turned Tom Cruise into an elderly oil baron for ‘Digger’, with the transformation.

Dwayne Johnson filming his new movie Lizard Music In theatres December 25, 2027 https://t.co/two8CG3d70
— CoveredGeekly (@CoveredGeekly) October 20, 2026

Johnson told D23 at its August 2026 event that he spent five hours a day in makeup to pass for a septuagenarian. He also said this week that the production is shooting on the streets of New York and at Coney Island, and that it’s the first time he has shot a film he stars in in the city. He described the movie as a love letter to New York and called Safdie, who was born in the city, its son.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, ‘Lizard Music’ follows a boy who discovers a secret late-night broadcast of music-playing lizards. As he seeks the truth, he meets the quirky septuagenarian Chicken Man, played by Johnson, and his 111-year-old chicken friend Claudia, and they set out on an adventure to explore a hidden society. World of Reel notes that Johnson has pitched the film as Willy Wonka from the mind of Safdie.

Dwayne Johnson looks unrecognizable on the streets of NYC for his new film ‘LIZARD MUSIC’ https://t.co/CARjCNaOvl
— Complex Pop Culture (@ComplexPop) October 20, 2026

The supporting cast is an eclectic mix. Alicia Silverstone, Tim Heidecker, Arya Parvathi, Regina Hall, Andrew Dice Clay and David Krumholtz appear, while Colman Domingo, Jeff Goldblum, Rachel McAdams and Krumholtz are cast in voice roles. Safdie wrote the screenplay, and producers include Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt of United Artists, Safdie, Johnson, and David Koplan.

Amazon MGM Studios set the Christmas Day 2027 date in an exclusive report by Deadline, which said the fantasy and wonder of the project make it a good fit for family audiences. Principal photography began in August, so the production is already well underway. The film has reportedly been in Hollywood development on and off for almost two decades.

The Rock shooting a new film called Lizard Music where he plays an old man https://t.co/PKjvY0d0SJ
— Ahmed/The Ears/IG: BigBizTheGod 🇸🇴 (@big_business_) October 20, 2026

The date puts it in a crowded corner of the calendar. It arrives a week after the December 17 releases of ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’, ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum’ and Lionsgate’s ‘The Housemaid’s Secret’, and on Christmas Day it will face other new films, including Ron Howard’s ‘Alone at Dawn’ and Nancy Meyers’ ‘Paris Paramount’. World of Reel observed that it has the potential to be one of the strangest Christmas Day releases from a major studio in a long time.

It’s still early, and there’s no trailer or official first look beyond the set photos and clips. But the combination of Safdie’s distinctive style, a heavy prosthetic transformation and a children’s book premise has plenty of people curious. If Johnson and Safdie can find the right balance of whimsy and weirdness, it could become one of the more memorable family films of the season.