Amazon MGM Studios has set Lizard Music for a December 25, 2027 theatrical release, putting Dwayne Johnson elderly man role front and center in a holiday slot usually reserved for broad commercial plays. Johnson stars as The Chicken Man, an eccentric septuagenarian brought to life with extensive makeup and prosthetics.
The film is a live-action/CGI hybrid directed by Benny Safdie, who also adapted the screenplay from Daniel Pinkwater’s novel. That matters because the project is not being sold as a simple fantasy title; it is being positioned around a visible transformation for Johnson and a family release date that can handle a big cast and a strange premise.
Christmas Day and The Chicken Man
December 25, 2027 gives Lizard Music a holiday launch window alongside other Christmas Day releases already on Amazon MGM Studios’ calendar, including Alone at Dawn and a Warner Bros. movie directed by Nancy Meyers. In release-date terms, that places Safdie’s film in a crowded prestige-commercial lane, where a theatrical opening has to appeal quickly and widely.
Dwayne Johnson plays The Chicken Man, the eccentric old man the boy at the center of the story eventually meets after stumbling on a secret late-night broadcast of lizards playing otherworldly music. The role is built around a major physical change, with the production using makeup and prosthetics to sell the age shift rather than relying on dialogue alone.
The Theo Clark Leber Search
The story follows Theo Clark Leber, who starts with a strange signal and ends up chasing answers through a world built around Claudia, an 85-year-old chicken. That detail gives the film a pointed tonal split: the setup is meant to work for families, but the character at the center of Johnson’s performance is an oddball elder, not a conventional hero.
Alicia Silverstone, Tim Heidecker, Arya Parvathi, Regina Hall, Colman Domingo, Jeff Goldblum, Rachel McAdams, Andrew Dice Clay and David Krumholtz also star, which gives the film the kind of ensemble support that helps a hybrid project travel beyond its hook. Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt are among the producers, along with David Koplan, Out for the Count Productions, Seven Bucks Productions and Magnetic Fields Entertainment.
December 25, 2027
The practical read is simple: Amazon MGM Studios has given Lizard Music a date that puts Johnson’s transformation on a holiday stage built for spectacle, but also for scrutiny. If the marketing leans on the make-up-and-prosthetics reveal, the film will need that visual trick to do more than generate curiosity; it has to carry the movie through a crowded Christmas Day field.
For now, the clearest takeaway is the date itself. December 25, 2027 is when audiences will see whether Johnson’s turn as The Chicken Man can turn a strange literary adaptation into a theatrical draw.
