Overview
- Amazon MGM announced the move on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, scheduling Lizard Music for a Dec. 25, 2027 theatrical release to take advantage of the holiday box office.
- Benny Safdie wrote and will direct the adaptation of Daniel Pinkwater’s novel with Dwayne Johnson starring in heavy makeup and prosthetics as the eccentric septuagenarian called the Chicken Man.
- The film is being produced by Scott Stuber and Nick Nesbitt for United Artists, Safdie for Out for the Count, Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions, and David Koplan for Magnetic Fields.
- Lizard Music is described as a live-action/CGI family fantasy about a boy who finds a secret late-night broadcast of music-playing lizards and joins the Chicken Man on an otherworldly adventure.
- The Christmas Day date places the Safdie–Johnson reunion into a crowded holiday slate that could sharpen competition for family audiences and awards attention after the pair’s prior collaboration, The Smashing Machine, drew critical notice.