Now that his WWE days are over, John Cena is getting back to another one of his expertise — comedy. On August 28, he’ll finally get to appear on the big screen as hotshot Acme lawyer Buddy Crane in the long-awaited release of the Looney Tunes legal comedy, Coyote vs. Acme, after it was saved by Ketchup Entertainment last year. Following that, in October, he’s set to lead the high-octane Matchbox: The Movie, adapting the world of Mattel’s die-cast toy cars into a globe-trotting action-adventure. First, however, he’s going to come face-to-face with his brother from another mother.
Cena is next heading to Netflix for Little Brother, reuniting him with comedian Eric André for the first time since 2020, when the wrestler appeared on The Eric André Show and threw the host through a shelf. This time around, though, André will bring his signature brand of chaos into his former attacker/guest’s life. Cena plays a famed real estate agent whose perfectly constructed life suddenly comes crashing down with the unexpected return of his eccentric «little brother,» whose erratic behavior pushes the age-old saying «You can’t say no to family» to the ultimate test. Ahead of the premiere next month, Netflix has shared the first trailer showing just how far André goes in testing his big bro’s patience.
The footage begins on a tragic note, with Cena’s high-powered agent Rudd believing his brother has just been in a devastating car accident. Lest you begin to believe this will be an emotional family tale, however, he’s left baffled when the doctor pulls back the curtain and reveals Marcus (André). He’s the now-grown-up «little brother» that Rudd spent time with at a charity event back in high school, yet fate has thrust them back together. With no place to go, he’s reluctantly welcomed into his big bro’s home and quickly hits it off with his wife, Deirdre (Michelle Monaghan). Rudd is no fan of letting a near-complete stranger follow him around, wreck his car, and interrupt his life, but Deirdre believes his old little brother can help him loosen up after years of growing up in his own big brother’s shadow. Thus, Marcus resolves to bring back the Rudd he knew and loved by any chaotic means necessary.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
‘Little Brother’ Was Made With Eric André in Mind
Alongside the trio of Cena, André, and Monaghan, Little Brother also casts Law & Order: SVU legend Christopher Meloni as Cena’s biological big brother, with Ego Nwodim, Sherry Cola, Caleb Hearon, Ben Ahlers, Bryce Gheisar, and Pilot Bunch rounding things out. Matt Spicer directs the film, marking his first feature since the darkly comedic 2017 feature Ingrid Goes West with Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen. The script, meanwhile, hails from Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly previewing the comedy, Cena said the duo penned it with André and his brand of comedy in mind. As a longtime fan of The Eric André Show, who already got a taste of what the host was capable of, he jumped at the rare chance to play the straight man opposite him.
«I was asked to read it and see what I thought, and I was wondering who the little brother was. And when it was Eric André, having been a fan of Eric and seeing his personality shown on The Eric André Show, with all of the physical comedy, all of the pushing boundaries, so to speak… It was written for Eric, and he just needed a comedic straight face to bounce the absurdity off of. And man, I’m grateful to get that seat.»
Little Brother premieres on Netflix on June 26. Check out the trailer in the player above.