John Morrison talks about entering the world of Hollywood looking for creative fulfillment, the origins of Johnny Drip Drip, and why it is unreasonable for all WWE talent to think that they can completely do whatever they want.
John Morrison started his wrestling journey by winning Tough Enough III. Since that time, he has captured several championships in WWE, left WWE in pursuit of success and career growth around the world in wrestling, experience the process of filmmaking, and re-entered WWE more experienced and even more creative than before.
Hollywood was a huge part of John Morrison’s time away from WWE. He starred in movies such as ‘RussellMadness’ and ‘Boone the Bounty Hunter,’ the latter of which was an idea all his own that he self-funded by selling his home in Manhattan Beach.
Speaking on the latest episode of WWE After the Bell, John Morrison compared WWE to Hollywood and explains how his search for creative fulfillment led to him self-funding his Boone the Bounty Hunter project.
WWE is like an express train, right? You get on and you just shoot through life and you leave a crazy legacy of just a ton of stuff that you've done because you're doing live TV and it's out there every week, and live shows in front of all these people. [But] you're missing a lot of creative autonomy, which is [why he wanted to get started in wrestling]. I have a million ideas and WWE is a live show, they don't have time for everyone's ideas. They have to produce Raw, SmackDown, NXT, NXT UK, there's so much stuff that some of my really nuanced ideas, one, might not even work in the world of pro wrestling, and two, every talent is frustrated, because they're not getting to do exactly what they want. But realistically, there's no time. You can't just say, ‘Hey roster, what does everyone want to do?’ It's just not how it works.”
He continued, “So it's like you trade leaving this big footprint and legacy and doing a lot of sometimes awesome things and sometimes things that you're not super stoked about for leaving and having way more creative autonomy, getting to do exactly what you want. But ‘Boone the Bounty Hunter’ took five years. The first version was a $10 million script. John Morrison in 2012 was like, ‘No problem.’ I'm John Morrison. Someone will give me 10 million bucks.’ Not even close. As we rewrote the script, it got cheaper and cheaper to the point where I kind of felt like if I don't make this movie, it's never gonna happen. So I ended up self-funding and selling my place in Manhattan Beach and making it for about a half mil. It was kind of exactly what I want, except they didn't have the money to make the complete vision. Like the part where we're having the car race the wrong way on the 405. No budget for that, for example.”
In the vein of creative autonomy, John Morrison explains the origins of Johnny Drip Drip. Morrison would say that this is actually an authentic version of himself but the Johnny Drip Drip character is something that he created while trying to annoy his wife, WWE NXT Superstar Franky Monet.
“I would say I pitch a weird idea, at least one, every week,” said Morrison. “Johnny Drip Drip was my rap name for the very first rap song that Miz and I did. I got it because I like to rap to Cardi B mostly to annoy Franky, and especially if there's a car full of her friends. Then it's like this awful rapping that I do got me the name Johnny Drip Drip and I just kind of kept it but then it kind of moved into like who I was all the time for some reason.”
John Morrison was supposed to have a major match on a recent Monday Night Raw with The Miz but that was scrapped because The Miz was selected for the most recent season of Dancing With the Stars. Learn more here.
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