Dwayne Johnson reflects on the failure of ‘Black Adam’, suggesting that the leadership change at DC was the cause…
A guest on Kevin Hart’s “Hart to Hart” talk show (recorded before the strike, and via Variety), Dwayne Johnson spoke about the failure of his superhero film Black Adam which had been billed as a new storytelling chapter within the DC Universe of Warner Bros. However, DC Studios was revamped shortly after its release, with new executives, James Gunn and Peter Safran, taking the reins. Dwayne Johnson had then announced that Black Adam 2 was not advancing at all for the moment.
Black Adam was caught up in the whirlwind of new rulers. There were so many changes in direction. Any time you have a business, a publicly traded company, and you have all these leadership changes, you have people who, creatively and fiscally, are going to make decisions that you might not be comfortable with. ‘OK.
The actor went on to say that he still doesn’t fully understand why the character was dropped.
“This will always be one of the greatest mysteries. You have the biggest opening of your career. Of course, without China, who might have [rapporter] $100 or $200 million more. You have a superhero and you want to develop the franchise. You bring back Superman and Henry Cavill. The world has gone mad. And we’ve also created a diverse portfolio of superheroes, where we only have men and women of color in Black Adam.”
black adam debuted in theaters grossing $67 million at the box office, a career high point for Dwayne Johnson — and more than the $55 million earned by The Flash this year. However, the numbers stagnated and the film failed to cross the $400 million mark at the worldwide box office.
“It’s like a new owner coming in and buying an NFL team and saying, ‘Okay. Not my trainer. Not my quarterback. It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve won the Super Bowl. It doesn’t matter how many rings we have. I’m leaving with someone else,” he continued.
The actor informed fans, via social media last December, that he had spoken to new DC bosses and that Black Adam 2 was no longer on the table for the moment. He said the character “will not feature in their first storytelling chapter”, but added that DC and its production company, Seven Bucks, “agreed to continue exploring the most valuable ways to utilize Black Adam in future DC Multiverse Chapters.”
“All I can do, and all we could do when we were doing Black Adam, was do our best and surround ourselves with the best people and deliver the best movie we can.,” he later told Variety. “Our audience score was in the 90s. Critics fired a few bullets, but that’s just business.”
Black Adam can be seen on MyCanal.