We’ll never get to see the Rock beat up Superman
Black Adam changed the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe so thoroughly that Black Adam is no longer a part of the hierarchy
Aux News Superman
Since beginning the long, unnecessary journey of bringing Black Adam to the silver screen, Dwanye “The Rock” Johnson has made his intentions clear: He wants fans to see him kick the shit out of Superman. Nothing would cement his legacy as the all-time candy-ass kicker and jabroni stomper better than an Instagram post of the Rock laying the smackdown on big blue. However, it looks like that image will only exist on the Instagram feed of the mind. Unfortunately, Black Adam changed the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe so thoroughly that Black Adam is no longer a part of the hierarchy.
After weeks of trying to convince people that Black Adam wasn’t a flop and that Henry Cavill was returning as Superman, Johnson conceded on Twitter earlier today that Black Adam would not be returning any time soon. “James Gunn and I connected, and Black Adam will not be in their first chapter of storytelling,” he wrote. “However, DC and Seven Bucks have agreed to continue exploring the most valuable ways Black Adam can be utilized in future DC multiverse chapters.”
“James and I have known each other for years and have always rooted for each other to succeed. It’s no different now, and I will always root for DC (and Marvel) to win and win big.”
Reading too much into Johnson’s impeccable P.R. speak—all sincere thank yous end with a plug for tequila—Black Adam might appear in a DC video game, a theoretical Flash sequel, or an animated special sometime in the future. Also, he’d like to be in a Marvel movie. Other than that, it sounds like spending $400 million on a Black Adam movie might not have been a sound business decision. Maybe it’s time to cut back on the Teremana during work hours.
119 Comments
That’s a relief! Black Adam ought to stick to getting beat down by the Shazamily.
We still need that movie.Unless we had that movie.I haven’t watched this movie yet.
I thought it was marginally decent at points, but I ended up mostly being bored. I could tell there were moments that the film really expected me to care about, but I didn’t.
The Black Adam movie pretty much ignores the Shazam connection completely. It was in the original script but was cut out of the final film. Not only that, but Johnson was offered a role in Shazam 2 and said no. It seems he didn’t want Black Adam to be associated with Shazam, which is dumb since his entire character design is just Shazam wearing black.
I mean, the set up is there – he says “Shazam” and there’s the Shazam wizard. That used to be more than enough foreshadowing but now we need to tell Legolas to go find the next movie characters for us. I get Rock’s ego (and wallet) want Superman, but it would be nice to see Shazam fight Black Adam in a 3rd movie.
It could have started with a fight with Shazam, Black Adam beats him down, then Superman shows up for the big battle.
Had he hitched himself to Shazam 2, a sequel to an already successful film, maybe that would have helped Black Adam become a hit.
But no, The Rock refused to job to Zachary Levi and so his movie sunk.
I’m certain if Gunn’s DCU takes off we will eventually get some form of a Crisis movie where we will see the return of The Rock, Henry Cavill, and oh… let’s say Gal Gadot
As long as Gal sticks to action scenes and nobody tries to get her to emote.
In all fairness, that’s also true of The Rock.
Truth
I have always been surprised a Crisis movie wasn’t the original end goal when starting the DCEU
I mean, it might’ve been, if anyone can interpret that graphic Snyder put on Vero a few years back
Black Adam was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Not one of the worst superhero movies, one of the worst movies in general. Not surprised that they’re distancing themselves from it as much as possible.
I’m going to have to assume you don’t see a lot of movies. Black Adam wasn’t a great movie by any stretch, but it was serviceable popcorn stuff. Probably above average by post-Nolan DC standards.
This. I wouldn’t say it was a great movie. I wouldn’t even say it was a good movie. But I had fun watching it, and it did a way better job than I thought it would of juggling so many characters.
Yeah, but he’s only seen two movies, and the other one was Casablanca.
“Casablanca is the second-worst movie I’ve ever seen!”
Nah. Most of the non-Snyder DC movies were at least watchable, and several (Shazam, The Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn, Wonder Woman 1) were downright great. Black Adam doesn’t even rise to the level of “servicable popcorn stuff” (Aquaman occupies that niche pretty handily.) It’s just edgy, dull and tedious. Despite its spotty reputation, DC movies are generally better than this.
“Black Adam wasn’t a great movie by any stretch, but it was serviceable popcorn stuff.”
No, it wasn’t. It was fucking terrible.There was no protagonist, there was no antagonist until about 3/4 of the way through, they introduced the Justice Society in a way that made it feel like it was the third-season premiere of the JS TV series.
It was straight garbage. Absolutely terrible.
each to their own, but it was a load shit that wasn’t helped by an out-of-depth Rock, who doesn’t have the range to carry the role or film.
And this is the correct take.
It was a fine C+ movie or C movie. Nothing good or great about it but it was fine mindless fighting. I rather a movie with a good story but man Superhero wise…X-Men 3X-Men Dark PhoenixThor 2Any FF movieare all way worse.
I will not stand for this Catwoman, Steel, and Elektra erasure.
Lol, I was gonna say and alot more movies I never watched! I never watched Catwoman or Steel but I’m sure you are right. And yes Elektra was shit as well!
Eh, Thor 2 was more egregiously forgettable than it was particularly bad.
Batman V. Superman might always take the top honor of the worst of that era of DCU movies. I walked out of the theater with a headache trying to figure that thing out. WW 84 is a close second. The only saving grace was that I got to watch it on HBO Max at my mom’s house on Christmas day.
Welcome to the internet, where everything must be either the best or worst thing ever.
I would say it’s probably some where in the middle for me. You should go through the Vinegar Syndrome or Cauldron labels sometime to temper your terrible movie barometer.
Black Adam is one of the worst mainstream, big budget studio movies I’ve ever seen.
Nah all those VS movies are way more fun than BA.
I dunno. Some are, but you ever seen Liquid Sky? It’s fucking awful.
Gonna echo the others. Black Adam wasn’t not great by any stretch but it wasn’t terrible. I enjoyed my time with it even though I knew it was dumb
The Room would like you to watch it
Watching it, the only thing I could think of was, “The Rock has a contract rider that says he can never lose a fight onscreen.”
no wonder he wanted to fight superman so badly lol
He won that right from its previous holder, Hulk Hogan, when he beat him at Wrestlemania 18
Eh, it wasn’t great, but one of the worst movies you’ve ever seen?!? Come on now, hyperbole much?
It was not a good movie, but neither was it a “so bad it makes me angry” movie, and also not a “so bad it’s funny” movie. It was fluff – some good moments, but otherwise so forgettable that I’m already having trouble remembering the plot. Really, the only thing that truly stood out in the movie was the Henry Cavill cameo in the stinger, and now that DC has thrown both halves of that scenario in the trash I’ll get started forgetting about that, too.
mate, it wasn’t GOOD, but worst movie category? Hardly. not even bottom ten superhero movies.
It was just marginally better than Jupiter’s Legacy, which in my view is the worst big-budget superhero movie ever made.
For what it’s worth, I mostly enjoyed Black Adam. As a long-time fan of of the JSA, it was exciting to see them on-screen, particularly Doctor Fate.Cavill’s cameo at the end was nice as well.
Yeah, it wasn’t bad. Wasn’t great and Dwayn Johnson’s performance was a bit wooden and way too self-serious.I agree, Pierce Brosnan’s Dr. Fate was great. The action was fun.The movie’s run time ran a bit long toward the end.Most of these are nitpicks but probably the biggest complaint I have is just how much Hawkman felt like a poor-man’s Black Panther/T’Chala, Atom Smasher a poor-man’s Ant-Man, Cyclone a poor woman’s Shuri, and the whole jet thing coming out of the courtyard of a big mansion felt ripped right out of X-Men.
The best part was Hawkman’s eyes. I thought they were gonna have to Spider-Man those eyes but they used that real dude’s real eyes and they looked amazing under that helmet!
It was mostly ok, nothing new, just different faces. Fate and Hawkman were the highlights, I wish they’d have just made a Justice Society movie. But The Rock managed to single-handedly will a movie headlining a D-list Villain. I went into the movie wondering which immortal Egyptian hero would die, and I was right, but was surprised that the movie asks that as well.
Fate’s death was dumb as hell though. He could have just, like, moved instead of suiciding.
His death was so fucking stupid.
One of my favorite DC characters and a damn good actor to play him and then he’s written so badly.
I think he was just tired of shouting “crown of sabbac”.
It was also a poor man’s Dr Strange’s “I saw only only one option” in Endgame, which is unfortunate since there were already so many parallels being drawn between the characters.
You know you might be right about that, he saw 13 million different futures and the only one where he didn’t have to say that anymore was suicide future.
Fate is so much cooler than Strange too 🙁
I liked Hawkman and Fate the most in this movie. I thought it was decent and will rewatch parts of it when it’s on HBO.
You are in luck. It is already on HBO Max.
I heard it’s because the Rock is too chickenshit and candy-assed to go toe to toe with Superman.
Oohhh snap!
Just sayin’I bet Vin Diesel would do it.
Vinnie has too much respect for Supes.“I am Superman” and all that
Thanks for nothing, James Gunn. Your Suicide Squad reboot bombed, you inexplicably failed upward, and you killed Superman. What will you destroy next?
I’m pretty sure Snyder’s the one who killed Superman, and is also the all time monarch of failing upward
Why are people blaming James Gunn and not The Rock? The Rock went over Walter Hamada’s head when he said no to Superman and he did it in some long game pursuit clearly without any consideration of all the changes happening at WBD. I guess he didn’t know that but this certainly seems like the worst result that could have happened by going over the then-DC bosses head.
People should be blaming The Rock for being so stubborn here and dangling fruit he had no business touching in fans noses.
If I can be Frank for once, Walter Hamada isn’t exactly a beacon of success here.
Granted. But I can understand where Hamada’s head was at thinking “Black Adam V. Superman” wasn’t a great next step for the character after “Batman V. Superman”…
If I can be Frank, I’ll be Frank Stallone.
Ignore the OP. He’s a troll who copied others profiles and posts awful, usually racist, shit
I was thinking it didn’t sound like the good Doctor.So we’re going through his identity being stolen again are we?*sigh*
Oh thank you I didn’t make note of the username. I’m aware of this imposter.
the part of it that confuses me the most is when he must be about to hit “publish” and thinks “I am being cool by doing this”it’s like when Elon Musk is about to tweet and he looks at it and thinks “that is funny”
He does think it, he says it out loud to his Cheetos dust stained waifu body pillow
“Why are people blaming James Gunn and not The Rock?”Because Gamergoogoogaagaa never ended and these people are broken.
Honestly, if David Zaslav hadn’t brought in Gunn/Safran to run things, the Rock’s actions were good given the circumstances. Cavill back, Flash and Aquaman down the road, keep the universe humming, make a couple more movies and dollars, and then let it peter out in a few years until the reboot down the line.
Gunn’s DCU, however, brings that reboot forward faster. 10-15 year plan, so a 38 year old Cavill is too old to keep the role. He would’ve been fine had the plan been in place since his original casting when he was 29, but now? Too old, so you gotta cast younger — especially for your centrepiece character. Unfortunate, but necessary and understandable.
Nothing is anyone’s fault. The Rock made the best decision at the time, Zaslav’s decision was also good, and Gunn’s (hopefully) will be as well. Fingers crossed!
You’re arguing with a fake, troll account.
I mean, The Suicide Squad had a dual release on HBO Max in the middle of the pandemic, and is 90% on Rotten Tomatoes (and, not incidentally, spawned the excellent Peacemaker). No DC movie without a bat in it was going to do much better under those circumstances.
Harley is in it, who is a Bat-character. DC is like 50%+ Bat characters at this point though.
Lol is this the fake account
“Failed upward?” Multiple highly regarded films both inside and outside of Marvel, and one of the best television shows of the last year would say otherwise. TSS failed at the box office because it came out in an era where people were terrified to go to the movies – to say nothing of the fact that WB released it on HBO Max at the same time.
To say he “killed” Superman is to say that anybody who has ever rebooted that franchise “killed” Superman. Not really a great argument.
Everyone, this is the troll that loves pretending to be the good Dr.
lmaooooooooo what is this the fake lizardo?
Hey, look, the A. V. Club still refuses to ban their resident name-stealing troll!
Never say Never
The more Dwayne Johnson tried to hype up the fight between Black Adam and Superman, the less interested I became. Yes, being one of the most powerful characters in the DC universe is a big part of Superman, but only talking about how hard he’s going to punch someone kind of misses the point of the character.
They’ve barely begun to undo the damage the DCEU did to Superman. How about spend some more time to re-establish the Superman character first? I don’t even know if the resurrected Superman still kills people. They need at least another movie to give him a personality, show his compassion, kindness, humanity, relatability, and willingness to see the good in everyone.
The CW has the only really good Superman right now in Superman & Lois – heaven knows how long that’ll last.
I’m amazed it didn’t already get canned. There are some things I don’t like about it but damned if the Supermanning parts of it aren’t awesome.
Especially since we know BA can beat up Superman because he’s all magic, it’s not even a decent fight. There’s already an animated movie about this and it’s just fine, nothing special, I don’t see how live action can do any better.
i won’t say it’s “weird to me,” because snyder stans are… interesting, but the level of “belovedness” and “my/best superman” for Cavill is… weird. I think he was a good casting choice, but the direction/writing of all three —- wait, only three? That can’t be right, you’d think he had played the role 7 times given how special his performance apparently is —- is awful to mediocre. Doesn’t tap into any of Cavill’s charm, just this overly stoic wiener with a jesus complex. Man of Steel is, grudgingly, fine, but so flawed. BvS is an abortion; Justice League is… whatever. It’s crap, just better crap than BvS.THat’s it. Those are his three Superman movies. Gadot had a great Wonder Woman movie, Momoa was super fun in his role, Cavill did… things. I would LIKE to see him get a shot at a GOOD movie but jfc. he’s been superman longer than most, and none of it was good. move on.
Anyone got any idea why Henry Cavill seemed to become so persona non grata in films as Superman? I’m utterly baffled as to why they went to blocking his use at every turn seemingly all of a sudden.
He’s one of the main faces of films they want to move away from, through no fault of his own.
But this has been going on for a while before all this, wasn’t it? Maybe as far back as Shazam if not more with rumours about Cavill not to be used at all for anything.
“I’m utterly baffled as to why they went to blocking his use at every turn seemingly all of a sudden.”
That’s probably because they didn’t block his use at every turn and in fact BROUGHT HIM BACK when he didn’t have a contract to return.
probably some contractual bullsh*t that paid him out a lot of money that they were trying to avoid
Yeah, I was thinking that it’s just avoiding a Marvel-RDJ battleships full of money situation. You keep pinning everything around one actor, there’s precedent for that actor getting half the movie’s budget to show up for an afternoon.
Like how Bruce Willis got fired from Expendables III for demanding like a million bucks a day for a 5 minute scene?
My bet: he’s too expensive. When they say they want a “younger” Superman, what they mean is that they want a relative unknown that will snap at the chance to sign a 5-project deal cheap with plenty of exit clauses for the studio and none for the actor.
“Other than that, it sounds like spending $400 million on a ”That’s how much it made at the global box office, not how much it cost, even with advertising, obviously.
Yeah, apparently the budget was “only” $260 Million.
“James Gunn and I connected, and Black Adam will not be in their first chapter of storytelling,”
If Dwayne Johnson weren’t so charismatic I’d be wondering if he sometimes gets a little high on his own supply.
I can’t think of anyone else who is so (superficially) charming and yet so utterly dull. He is right in the corner of some charm-vs-dullness graph.
It’s a shame, because his wrestling career showed repeatedly that he was capable of being and doing the kinds of things he seems to actively avoid as an actor. 1998 Rock was interesting; his early Nation of Domination promos blasting WWF fans for booing his initial babyface run were cool but still menacing at the same time. Corporate heel Rock and 2001 babyface Rock were I guess the preview of current movie star Johnson, entertaining but insubstantial, but then 2002 heel Rock was the kind of lead who is quietly a great supporting player who is perfect at doing the little things that boost the others around them: The Hurricane is a beloved character from that era 100% because The Rock put him over, and not just in that one match. I couldn’t say exactly where in his movie career he just abandoned all of those things, but it seems that at least since he joined the Fast franchise his movies have existed mostly as promotion for his overall persona.
This article states that they spent $400m on Black Adam but the Tech Crunch article you link to states that the film earned $400m globally. Am I missing something here?
I didn’t see it but was it as badly lit as Wakanada Forever?
Nope, it’s long enough in development that it’s still trying to ape the Snyder style in places, but except in a few flashbacks, the color saturation isn’t dialed down 50%.
I’d be surprised if it did in fact turn a profit. When looking at the box office, a lot of the time production budget is used to measure what the film has profited. But the studios also have to look at the marketing budget, which for Black Adam was well over $100 million. I like Dwayne Johnson, but this was a pretty average movie that they could have done way better with.
‘”We’ll never get to see the Rock beat up Superman”’ We may not but you what? You can pit Black Adam against Superman in Multiversus.
Black Adam would have been a hit for WB had it not been banned in Kahndaq!
I mean, if the Rock wants to fight Cavill, there is a role he’d be perfect for
Except that Cavill as the Emperor would be a waste, since you’d get a couple of extended flashbacks but he’ll spend most of the franchise as a glorified wi-fi hotspot
Thank god
Black Adam should’ve been introduced as an antagonist in a Shazam movie. Afterwards, they could’ve spin him off into his own feature as an antihero. It’s so stupid to me that the first movie they made of Shazam’s archenemy was not in a Shazam movie. But like everything else the DCEU ever did, they rushed it out of order and it came out mediocre.
See also Sony, Venom.
I would watch a sequel, but only if it is called Blacker Adam.
But we can see Black Adam beat up Rich Sanchez in the upcoming Space Jam: Fall of the Risen.
Starred purely for “Fall of the Risen.”
WB/DC really love taking three movies’ worth of plot and characters, cramming them into one movie, and then cutting it into an incomprehensible mess. Green Lantern, Batman v Superman, and now this one all play like trilogies cut down to 2+ hrs. Makes me wonder how many movies The Flash will try to fit in that bag.
yeah, you have an entire mini justice society in BA here…THANK YOU for the Green Lantern reference. I’ve never hated it as much as some, I don’t think it was a turd, but it wasn’t GOOD —- and a big reason for that is how much shit they tried to cram in. Hal Origin! Parallax! Oa! Corps! Other villains! I stand by my assertion that the GL movie would have at least been a medium hit if it was SOLELY about Earthbound shit. The whole flick is Hal discovering some dead alien, getting a ring, learning how to use it, ALONE, tight focus. At the END, Sinestro shows up and brings him to Oa. BAM. There’s your sequel hook, THERE’S A WHOLE ARMY OF THESE DUDES???? It’s really what Marvel did with phase 1. Even Thor basically eased you into the idea. Iron Man is simple. Remember, this came out not TOO long after Iron Man; Hal and Tony have some similarities in being cocky, charismatic ding dongs. So instead of opening with a 487 word opening crawl explaining the universe designated into sectors blah blah blahIron Man 1 opens with a Hummer and AC/DC. GL opens with Hal hotshot piloting, exciting shit, some cool song. BLAMMO. Plane issue. Hal goes down. Finds ring. etc etc. Or he does the first test fight withs ome Maverick style buzz the tower bullshit, gets down, introduce Carol, etc. NOt much longer his plane goes down.Just make us think Hal Jordan is immediately the coolest MFer around. That’s it. That’s the movie and journey. Not introducing the ENTIRE GL Corps in the same movie you introdue the base concept.
It’s really what Marvel did with phase 1.It’s as if WBDC have been constantly trying to do what Marvel did without actually doing what Marvel actually did.It’s as if that, because it is that.
Oh come on, you’re being unfair. Marvel only did this crazy thing of introducing their key players in individual movies that were more or less standalone before merging them together.
DC went:
Man of Steel
Batman vs Superman introducing Wonder WOman…oh.
I think he may show up in the 2nd level of DC Movies. He isn’t important enough of a character to appear in the 1st set of movies if DC is worried about the JL cast. I thought Black Adam was fine but the Rock messed up not wanting to be in a Shazam movies as his charcter is Shazam’s main villian.
I don’t care how much he loved it, Black Adam cannot be played by the Rock.
That stupid contract of his makes it so that he can never be a bad guy in any film he does, and he can never lose.
The whole point of Black Adam wasn’t that he won all of his battles (ahem, superman), the point was him being able to cross the line and being thwarted for his lack morality, not because he’s simply gloomier for being so powerful (ahem, snyder superman).
Not to worry The Rock. I’ll handle the boy in blue asskicking.
I will always root for DC (and Marvel) to win and win big.So, which Marvel character will he end up playing?
I’d rather see The Rock finally get a pummeling he deserves.