It used to be the joke du jour that Dwayne Johnson wanted to be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now? He wants to be the next Brendan Fraser. All right, not so much. But he is negotiating a deal to star in the sequel to Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Yes, following word that Fraser had dropped out of the film (titled Journey 2: The Mysterious Island), New Line has been digging deep to find a new star, and, after trying to woo Johnson for a while, managed to start hammering out a deal for the lead role.

Josh Hutcherson is returning Sean Anderson, and Johnson will be playing his mother’s boyfriend, who the lad must take with him on a trip to the titular island in order to track down his missing grandfather. It does make you wonder, if that family are such great explorers, why they keep going missing all the time.

According to the Heat Vision blog, there are still three more lead characters to be cast and the script, written by Richard Outten, Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn, is loosely adapted from Jules Verne’s tome The Mysterious Island. Cats & Dogs sequel director Brad Peyton is on board to make the movie in 3D.

It would appear Johnson is back to switching between family fare and grittier movies, even though the likes of Faster indicated he was getting back into action/drama full time for a minute there.