John Cena has landed his next big movie role, having joined Paramount’s family comedy Playing With Fire.
Variety reports that the plot of the film centers around a team of “rugged wildfire fighters” who find themselves out of their depth after rescuing a group of rowdy kids.
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No other cast members, or a director, have been announced but the script is currently being finalized.
Playing With Fire certainly won’t be Cena’s first venture into the world of comedy film, as the WWE superstar previously gave scene-stealing turns in films such as Trainwreck, Sisters, and both Daddy’s Home films.
He also led the critically acclaimed 2018 comedy Blockers alongside Leslie Mann and Ike Barinholtz.
Cena is no stranger to family-friendly films either, as he appeared in the 2010 kids film Fred: The Movie, and voiced the title character in the Oscar-nominated animated film Ferdinand.
In April, Cena spoke about his film career with Screen Rant and shared that doing films — especially comedy films — has always been something he hoped to pursue.
“I can say I love telling stories and that’s what I love most about being in the WWE and once you get as physically seasoned as I am and you continue to be drawn back to the element of WWE, I really have looked at it like what is a what is it about this that excites me so much, and it’s the stories,” he said. “It’s the new archenemy, or the old rival, or whatever my thinking? And to tell those stories over a period of time, the longest that I’ve been able to do it, you have to show moments of embarrassment.”
“You can’t always win because it’s just not believabl,e so in a very rare circumstance, I’m one of the few characters that have had to eat crow, be humiliated, and lose,” Cena continued. “Tell them to bet the farm on me because it’s going to work out and not, and then explain myself afterward.”
“I started to draw a lot from like many people losing major sporting events because that’s genuine pure emotion but then you apply your life moments, and then I had the opportunity in Trainwreck, to kind of take that and tell a different story, from a different point of view, and I remember Trainwreck specifically being written because Amy had an experience with an over the athletic dude and she was worn out and like that was the joke,” he added.
Next up, Cena can be seen in the Transformers film franchise spin-off Bumblebee, which opens in theatres on Dec. 21.
