WWE.com John Cena returned to 'SmackDown Live' on July 4th.
Tonight on SmackDown Live, John Cena will face Shinsuke Nakamura, with the winner going on to battle Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam. Cena has been taking a lot of time off from the WWE over the past few years in order to pursue his Hollywood career, so what movies does he have coming out?
Cena currently has four films in the works. First, on November 10th, Paramount Pictures will release Daddy’s Home 2, which features John Cena in a minor role. He plays the father of Mark Wahlberg’s character’s stepdaughter. Cena also played this character in the first Daddy’s Home, but only in one scene at the very end of the movie.
Next, John Cena will star in Ferdinand, an animated film from Blue Sky, the studio behind Ice Age, Rio and The Peanuts Movie. This is probably the biggest movie to be released thus far in which Cena has the lead role, as he voices the titular Spanish Fighting Bull. Ferdinand hits theaters on December 15th, 2017, the same day as Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Those are the two movies that Cena will be seen in this year. Then, in April 2018, Cena will star in The Pact. This was the movie that he was filming when he took his hiatus after WrestleMania 33. The Pact is a comedy about three parents who try to stop their daughters from losing their virginities on prom night. It stars John Cena, Leslie Mann, and Ike Barinholtz.
Finally, it was just recently announced that John Cena will star in Bumblebee, the Transformers spinoff film. The movie also stars Hailee Steinfeld as a young woman who discovers the Transformer in a beach town in California. It’s unclear what character John Cena will play, but he will have a lead role in the movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Bumblebee just recently began principal photography, meaning it will be in production for the next several months. It’s unclear when precisely Cena will leave to film the movie, but he will likely take another hiatus beginning after SummerSlam or maybe even earlier. We’ll get a better idea of when Cena is going to leave after seeing the result of his match against Shinsuke Nakamura tonight on SmackDown Live. Bumblebee hits theaters on December 21st, 2018.
Cena looks to be on pace to become the next wrestler turned major Hollywood star. He began to break into the film industry in the late 2000s by starring in The Marine and 12 Rounds, but neither of these were successful at the box office. However, Cena gained worldwide attention after his performance in the Amy Schumer comedy Trainwreck. Cena played Schumer’s boyfriend at the beginning of the movie, and although he only had a few scenes, his comedic performance became one of the movie’s most talked about moments. That same year, Cena had small roles in two other comedies: Sisters and Daddy’s Home. In addition, earlier this year, Cena starred in The Wall, a war film directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) that earned mixed to positive reviews and that grossed $3.5 million in limited release.
At least two recent WWE stars are currently doing quite well for themselves in Hollywood. First, of course, is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who in 2016 became the highest paid actor in the world. But there’s also Dave Bautista, who has been praised for his comedic acting as Drax in the massively popular Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Cena has faced both The Rock and Bautista in the ring many times.
During recent interviews, John Cena has made clear that his professional wrestling career will not last too much longer.
“… I also know that my days are numbered,” Cena recently told Complex Magazine. “I just turned 40 in April and we have so many young and talented performers, I don’t know how many years I have left. So in the time I have left, I’m gonna do what I can to dedicate to this company I just want to be able to do it the most time that I possibly can.”