John Cena

John Cena (birthname: John Felix Anthony Cena) has been consecrated by WWE chairman Vince McMahon as “the Babe Ruth” of the WWE, but alongside his highly successful pro wrestling career, Cena has sustained a movie career cashing in on his fame in the ring. His big-screen debut was as the star of The Marine (2006), produced by McMahon’s WWE Studios and released by 20^th Century Fox, with Robert Patrick and directed by John Bonito, which began a franchise of five additional direct-to-video sequels.

Cena’s second starring role in a WWE Studios/20^th Century Fox movie was in 12 Rounds (2009), directed by Ronnie Harlan and with Aidan Gilles, Ashley Scott, and Steve Harris. John Cena remained the move-star-of-choice for WWE Studios as star of Legendary (2010), acting for the first time with world-class actors like Patricia Clarkson and Danny Glover, under Mel Damski’s direction, though the movie lost money for the studio and distributor Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Cena then starred as a cop in another WWE Studios/Samuel Goldwyn Films release, The Reunion (2011), co-starring Ethan Embry, Amy Smart, and Boyd Holbrook. In a departure from WWE Studios, Cena joined the ensemble of director-producer Judd Apatow’s and star-writer Amy Schumer’s comedy, Trainwreck (2015), with Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, Vanessa Bayer, Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, Mike Birbiglia, Norman Lloyd, and LeBron James, grossing $141 million globally, over four times costs. Cena continued to perform alongside Saturday Night Live alumni in the Jason Moore-directed Sisters (2015), co-starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, with Maya Rudolph, Dianne Wiest, James Brolin, and John Leguizamo, and grossing $105 million worldwide.

John Cena earned his first serious dramatic starring role under Doug Liman’s direction in Amazon Studios’ war thriller, The Wall (2017), co-starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and released by Roadside Attractions. Cena played support to the eclectic starring lineup of Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, John Lithgow, and Mel Gibson in the Christmas movie sequel, Daddy’s Home 2 (2017), co-written and directed by Sean Anders and co-produced by Ferrell and Adam McKay, earning $180.6 million for Paramount Pictures.

After a few voice performances in animated features released direct-to-video, Cena played the voice of Ferdinand the Bull in Blue Sky Studio’s animated feature, Ferdinand (2017), alongside the voice ensemble of Kate McKinnon, Bobby Cannavale, Peyton Manning, Anthony Anderson, Raul Esparza, and Daveed Diggs, grossing a good $296 million globally for 20^th Century Fox.

In another profitable ($94 million globally) comedy, John Cena co-starred opposite Leslie Mann and Ike Barinholtz in the Kay Cannon-directed Blockers (2018), followed by Cena’s biggest-grossing movie to date as co-star in the Transformers spinoff movie, Bumblebee (2018), directed by Travis Knight and starring Hailee Seinfeld, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Pamela Adlon, Angela Bassett, and Justin Theroux, and earning a $468 million global gross.

Under the Nickelodeon/Paramount Pictures banner, Cena starred in the family comedy about smokejumpers, Playing with Fire (2019), co-starring Keegan-Michael Key, John Leguizamo, Dennis Haysbert, and Judy Greer. Cena played a supporting voice role in Universal Pictures’ widely lambasted and commercially failed ($251.5 million-grossing) remake, Doolittle (2020), starring Robert Downey Jr., and an ensemble including Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen, Emma Thompson, Rami Malek, Kumamoto Nanjiani, Octavia Spencer, Tom Holland, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, Marion Cotillard, Jim Broadbent, and Jessie Buckley.

John Cena joined the massively successful Fast & Furious franchise with the series’ ninth entry suitably titled F9 (2021), co-written and directed by Justin Lin, and co-starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang, Michael Rooker, Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell, and Charlize Theron, and powering to a solid $726 million global gross for Universal Pictures.

Cena followed this by joining another franchise, DC Comics’ The Suicide Squad (2021), a stand-alone sequel to Suicide Squad (2016) directed and written by James Gunn, and co-starring Margot Robbie, Iris Elba, Joel Kinnaman, Sylvester Stallone, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Alice Braga, and Pete Davidson, but which lost money for Warner Bros. ($169 million). Cena continued his role as Jakob Toretto in Universal’s tenth Fast & Furious movie, Fast X (2023), directed by Louis Leterrier and starring Diesel, Jason Statham, Jason Momoa, Rodriguez, Gibson, Bridges, Brewster, Kang, Rooker, Mirren, Theron, Rita Moreno, Scott Eastwood, and Brie Larson, and earning $714 million worldwide.

After doing a cameo in Margot Robbie’s acclaimed hit, Barbie (2023), John Cena turned to another voice role, Rocksteady, in Nickelodeon/Paramount’s acclaimed, profitable animated sequel, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023), co-written by cast member Seth Rogen and directed by Jeff Rowe, with the voices of Micah Abbey, Sharon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantù, Brady Noon, Ayo Edebiri, Maya Rudolph, Giancarlo Esposito, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube, Paul Rudd, and Post Malone. Cena starred in action comedy mode in Freelance (2023), with Alison Brie, Juan Pablo Raba, and Christian Slater under Pierre Morel’s direction, and then co-starred with Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, and Samuel L. Jackson in the Matthew Vaughn-directed spy comedy, Argylle (2024) for Universal Pictures/Apple TV+.

Cena played the arch-nemesis of Wile E. Coyote in Warner Bros. Pictures Animation’s delayed live-action/animation feature, Coyote vs. Acme (date to be announced), directed by Dave Green, and with Will Forte and Lana Condor. John Cena was executive producer and star of the Paul Feig-directed action comedy for Amazon MGM Studios, Grand Death Lotto (date to be announced), with fellow cast members Awkwafina, Simu Liu, Sean William Scott, and Dolly de Leon, and then was executive producer and co-star of the Ilya Naishuller-directed action comedy, Heads of State (date to be announced), with co-stars Iris Elba and Priyanka Chopra Jones, also for Amazon MGM Studios.