With Journey 2: The Mysterious Island having brought in over $272 million worldwide thus far, New Line Cinema is moving forward with Journey 3.

Not only that, but the studio has entered into negotiations with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to return for the third installment. Johnson took over the franchise in Journey 2 after Brendan Fraser starred in the first movie, 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Fraser’s turn as the lead brought in about $242 million worldwide on a budget of $60 million, while Johnson’s sequel delivered the above-mentioned $272 million on a $79 million budget. About even, though Journey 2 has only been out for a month and those numbers will surely grow a bit larger.

The Rock has made something of a habit of stepping into sequels and giving the franchise a jump start, including Fast Five (with Fast Six on the way), G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and the Journey movies. The man has energy for days, and charisma that is nearly impossible to match.

Other projects in various stages of production include Snitch, Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain, Empire State, and Arabian Nights. He was also recently said to be up for playing Hercules for Brett Ratner.

Now…what are the chances of us seeing The Rock in the recently announced Transformers 4? We know Bay is making it, but the plan is to semi-reboot it with a lot of new cast so it would be silly of the director not to do what he has to do to get this man involved somehow and give the franchise a good healthy jolt of that energy only Johnson can provide.

[Source: The Wrap]