WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Red Notice, which is streaming on Netflix now.
Red Notice director Rawson Marshall Thurber revealed in a new interview that Dwayne Johnson has more or less been spoiling the end of the film since he pitched it to the actor in 2018.
"So for Dwayne, I pitched him the whole story and then got to the twist at the end and that's actually the moment when I was -- we were having dinner," Thurber told Collider. "And I pitched him the story and he's listening, he's eating his steak and drinking, and he's like, 'I'm kind of into it' ... and then I get to the twist where, you know, John Hartley is actually the Bishop, Dwayne is actually working with Gal [Gadot], and he got up and he threw his napkin down and he said, 'I'm in! I'm in, I'm in, I'm in.' And then I got really drunk."
The director also detailed his reaction to Johnson posting a picture from said dinner on his Instagram page in February 2018, alongside the caption, "...My character will make you think twice about ever judging a book by its cover. Even if you've read every page."
"Yeah, that's the actual dinner," Thurber confirmed. "And yeah, Dwayne's tricky, man. I mean, he's kind of been playing it cards up on his Instagram if you go back and read his posts about his character. It's all there."
Those who've already watched Red Notice will recall that, in the final minutes of the film, it was revealed Johnson's character John Hartley had been working alongside Gal Gadot's Sarah Black/The Bishop and that the pair of con artists operated collectively as "The Bishop."
Red Notice debuted on Netflix on Nov. 5 and was reportedly watched for approximately 278 million hours in its first 10 days of release, putting it on track to outpace Netflix's previous record-holder Bird Box. That film starred Sandra Bullock and was watched for 282 million hours in its first month of release.
While the streaming platform has yet to order a sequel to Red Notice, Thurber admitted, "I'm not working on the script for a sequel…I've certainly been noodling with what I would do for a follow-up and not to telltale out of school but yeah Netflix…we've been having those conversations."
The director also recently teased that he'd love to adapt his hit 2004 film Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story into a series starring Johnson and Ryan Reynolds. "You know what -- never say never. I never thought about Dodgeball as a series, but that actually might be fun," he said at the time. "I'm really proud of Dodgeball -- it's my first film and something people still really like it seems. I would say never say never, and it would have to be the right take on it. But yeah, maybe."
Red Notice is currently in select theaters and streaming on Netflix.