After Deadline exclusively revealed their next collaboration earlier this month, Benny Safdie is looking forward to making some sweet Lizard Music with Dwayne Johnson.
During the red carpet of A24‘s The Smashing Machine on Monday, the writer and director told us he wants to make a movie for his two children after bringing the life of UFC legend Mark Kerr to the big screen with their current film, now in theaters.
“It was interesting because after this movie—if it works for you—you leave the theater feeling something very filled up. Hopefully, you look out at life like, ‘That’s wild! All this stuff can happen to you and you can still be on the other side.’ And, ‘Isn’t life great? We’re alive, it’s beautiful,’” he explained at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
“And there was something about seeing that on people. I’ve got two kids, and I said, ‘You know what? I wanna be able to show something, and I wanna be able to have a conversation with them, and I want them to feel those feelings,’” added Safdie. “And so, that’s what we’re doing.”
As Deadline previously reported of the film based on Daniel Pinkwater’s novel, Safdie noted that Lizard Music is about “a kid who discovers an island of lizards that are sentient, and they play music, they have broadcast TV. And they want him to come and see them. And he teams up with the Chicken Man, who Dwayne plays, and they go on this adventure to find the land of the lizards.”
Benny Safdie teases what’s in store for his ‘Lizard Music’ project with Dwayne Johnson pic.twitter.com/hwaOU7rNaO
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) September 30, 2025
“[Johnson] was just talking about how he was slimming down,” said Safdie, after the actor revealed at Toronto International Film Festival that he was undergoing another transformation for the role.
Johnson explained his character is “a very whimsical and eccentric 70-something-year-old man called the Chicken Man. And his best friend is a 70-something-year-old chicken.”
As we previously reported, Lizard Music will be shopped immediately, with Johnson starring and Safdie writing and directing.
The post Benny Safdie Says Next Dwayne Johnson Team-Up ‘Lizard Music’ Is For His Kids: “I Want Them To Feel Those Feelings” appeared first on Deadline.
