Dwayne Johnson’s ‘Lizard Music’ Sets Christmas 2027 Release With Benny Safdie

Amazon MGM Studios has set Dec. 25, 2027, as the theatrical release date for Lizard Music, a live-action and CGI fantasy directed by Benny Safdie and starring Dwayne Johnson as an eccentric old man known as the Chicken Man. Deadline first reported the date in an exclusive on Oct. 19, 2026, and The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the holiday 2027 release.

Image: Dwayne Johnson speaks to the crowd at the 2024 Daytona 500. Photo: Spc. Casey Brumbach, U.S. Army, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

What Lizard Music is about

The film adapts Daniel Pinkwater’s 1976 novel of the same name, with Safdie writing the screenplay himself. According to Deadline, the story follows a boy, played by Theo Clark Leber, who is left to his own devices and stumbles onto a secret late-night broadcast of lizards playing otherworldly music.

His search for answers leads him to the Chicken Man and the old man’s constant companion, a chicken named Claudia. The two outsiders become kindred spirits and set off to find a hidden society, a trip Deadline describes as widening into “a voyage through invisible worlds” and “unexpected harmonies.” (Deadline gives Claudia’s age as 85, while The Hollywood Reporter lists her as 111 years old.)

Dwayne Johnson’s transformation into the Chicken Man

The project is billed as another transformative role for Johnson. Deadline reported that extensive makeup and prosthetics are being used to turn him into the septuagenarian Chicken Man, a sharp turn from the action-hero parts that made him one of Hollywood’s biggest box-office draws.

It also continues his partnership with Safdie. The two last worked together on The Smashing Machine, the A24 drama in which Johnson played UFC Hall of Famer Mark Kerr. The Hollywood Reporter noted that Johnson earned acclaim for that performance, and that the film was Safdie’s first solo directing effort after the movies he co-directed with his brother Josh Safdie, including Good Time and Uncut Gems.

Lizard Music cast and producers

Beyond Johnson and Leber, the cast includes:

• Alicia Silverstone
• Tim Heidecker
• Arya Parvathi
• Regina Hall
• Colman Domingo
• Jeff Goldblum
• Rachel McAdams
• Andrew Dice Clay
• David Krumholtz

Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt are producing for United Artists, along with Safdie for Out for the Count Productions, Johnson for Seven Bucks Productions and David Koplan for Magnetic Fields Entertainment, according to both trade reports.

A crowded Christmas Day 2027

Deadline argued that a Christmas launch makes sense for a fantasy aimed at family audiences. The slot is already getting busy. Amazon MGM is also opening Ron Howard’s Alone at Dawn, starring Anne Hathaway and Adam Driver, on Christmas Day 2027, and Warner Bros. has set a comedy from director Nancy Meyers for the same date. The Hollywood Reporter identified that film as Paris Paramount, starring Penélope Cruz, Kieran Culkin, Jude Law and Owen Wilson.

That puts two Amazon MGM releases on the same date, one a family fantasy and the other an action drama.

Why fans are talking about it

Reader comments under Deadline’s report ranged from “finally a Pinkwater movie” to one commenter who said the film was at least partly shot at their workplace. On X, posts about the news mixed excitement with jokes about the offbeat premise, and many focused on the image of Johnson, best known for larger-than-life action heroes, disappearing under prosthetics to play an elderly man who travels with a chicken.

The date is more than a year away, so details such as a trailer, a first look at Johnson in makeup and the film’s running time have not been released.

For more movie news, see The Boston Report’s look at how ‘Street Fighter’ won the weekend box office, our story on Sony weighing a same-day release for all four Beatles films, and our coverage of the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger.

Sources

• Deadline: ‘Lizard Music’ starring Dwayne Johnson and directed by Benny Safdie to tune up Christmas Day 2027 via Amazon MGM
• The Hollywood Reporter: Dwayne Johnson and Benny Safdie’s ‘Lizard Music’ sets holiday 2027 release
• ComingSoon.net: Lizard Music Amazon movie sets release date
• Wikimedia Commons: Dwayne Johnson at the 2024 Daytona 500 (public domain)