It seems like more professional wrestlers than ever before are attempting to make the jump from the squared circle to the silver screen, presumably to follow in the footsteps of trailblazer Dwayne Johnson. Of course, Andre the Giant played a prominent role in cult classic The Princess Bride, but he never became a full-time actor, and the less said about Hulk Hogan’s Mr. Nanny and Santa with Muscles the better.
The Big Show Show may have been canceled by Netflix after one season, but the eponymous giant still wants to play the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Kingpin, while Joe ‘Roman Reigns’ Anoa’i landed minor supporting parts in Johnson’s Hobbs & Shaw and Netflix hit The Wrong Missy. The most successful transition so far though has been that of Dave Bautista, who has carved out a solid niche for himself in the action genre while also showing off some surprising dramatic and comedic chops, but John Cena isn’t too far behind.
The 43 year-old is slowly but surely making his way up the Hollywood ranks and currently finds himself cast as the villain in the ninth installment of the Fast and Furious franchise, as well as taking third billing behind Margot Robbie and Idris Elba in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. And now, some new fan art from Jackson Caspersz imagines Cena as a Marvel character, offering up an idea of how he could look as the Sandman.
There’s clearly no rule against actors showing up in both the MCU and DCEU, and if either Sony or Marvel decide that they want to use the Sandman in a future project, then John Cena would be a solid choice. He’d be a lot more of a physical presence than the last time we saw the character as a troubled soul in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, but with multiple Spider-Man movies and the Sinister Six project in the works at rival studios, there definitely seems to be a place for Flint Marko to appear in the not-too-distant future.