The first movie to team Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson has found new life on streaming. Both performers are movie stars who began their careers in very different mediums. Hart began his career as a stand-up comedian and in fact has three of the 10 highest-grossing theatrically released stand-up specials of all time. Meanwhile, Johnson had his breakout as a WWF/WWE wrestler under the moniker "The Rock." Their acting careers both began to take off in 2001, when Hart took a role in Judd Apatow's Undeclared and Johnson played the villainous Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns.

Hart is now best known for his comedy movies, which include The Man from Toronto, Night School, and Ride Along, while Johnson dabbles in many genres including comedies like Baywatch and action movies such as Rampage and the Fast and Furious saga. The duo have collaborated on a number of popular projects, with a roster that includes the action franchise spinoff Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw and, perhaps most famously, the two most recent Jumanji movies, Welcome to the Jungle and The Next Level.

The Movie Was A Hit In 2016

Central Intelligence is now experiencing a streaming resurgence. The 2016 action-comedy was the first movie to pair Hart and Johnson, featuring the former as an ant and the latter as a CIA agent who must embark on a dangerous adventure after reconnecting at their high school reunion. The Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson movie was a critical and commercial hit, grossing $217 million against its $60 million budget and earning a solidly Fresh 71% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Central Intelligence was directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who would later reunite with Dwayne Johnson on Skyscraper and Red Notice.

Now, Central Intelligence has landed on the daily Top 10 chart of the streaming service Max for two days running. On February 28, it had climbed to No. 5, though at the time of writing it has since fallen to No. 7. In both cases, the movies ahead of it were the post-apocalyptic monster movie Elevation, the 2012 action-thriller End of Watch, the Oscar-nominated animated film Flow, and the documentary Who is Luigi Mangione?, though in the meantime, The Lord of the Rings: The War of The Rohirrim and We Live in Time have also taken places above the comedy.

What This Means For Central Intelligence

It Could Encourage Future Collaborations

Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart raise their hands while the latter is in a cart in Central Intelligence

Although Central Intelligence kicked off a long series of collaborations between the two stars, Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson have not worked together on a movie since they both provided voices for the 2022 animated feature DC League of Super-Pets. While they are both seemingly involved in the Jumanji 4, which has long been delayed, the streaming success of their first movie together could underscore the idea that there is continued interest in them collaborating, which could potentially lead to them reuniting in other movies beyond the impending sequel.

Source: Max

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Central Intelligence
Release Date
June 15, 2016
Runtime
114minutes
Director
Rawson Marshall Thurber

WHERE TO WATCH

Streaming

Writers
Ike Barinholtz, David Stassen, Rawson Marshall Thurber