Warning! Minor spoilers to follow for Rampage. Come back later if you haven't seen it yet.
While watching director Brad Peyton's Rampage, audiences may notice a fun little Easter egg in the office belonging to antagonist characters Claire and Brett Wyden (played by Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy, respectively). Along the back wall of the space you can see an arcade cabinet that features the game from which the film was adapted. Some might dismiss this as simply being a fun gag, but to hear Peyton tell it, it's totally legitimate to theorize how it might have inspired the villains' nefarious plot:
The name of their project was Project Rampage. So I didn't want to pin it down, but I wanted to kind of go, 'Yeah, she could have actually been a fan of the game to name it that.' And then if you needed to find out why they called the movie Rampage you also have the fact that the whole thing was started by Project Rampage. So it's very possible.
I spotted the Rampage arcade cabinet when I attended an early screening last week, and took the opportunity to ask Brad Peyton about it during the movie's Los Angeles press day. I bluntly asked if audiences were meant to potentially see the Easter egg as being inspiration for Claire's plan involving giant monsters, and the filmmaker agreed that it was a valid read.
In Rampage, based on a script by Ryan Condal, Carlton Cuse, and Ryan Engle, Claire and Brett Wyden develop Project Rampage at their company as a special chemical that alters a subjects' DNA. Because it is illegal work, their scientists have to do their experiments in space, but this becomes a problem when a test creature causes all kinds of havoc. As a result, canisters of Project Rampage crash land on Earth and wind up infecting three different animals: a gorilla, an alligator, and a wolf. It's basically coincidence that this happens, as the canisters wind up landing in locations all across the country, but Claire's affection for the Rampage video game makes one wonder if it all was really unintentional.
You can watch Brad Peyton discuss the Rampage arcade cabinets in the Wyden's office by clicking play on the video below.
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Naomi Harris, Joe Manganiello, P.J. Byrne, and Marley Shelton, Rampage arrives in theaters everywhere today. Head over to our Rate and Discuss page after your screening to let us know what you thought, and check out our 2018 Release Calendar to see what else is set to come out the rest of the year.
