Dwayne Johnson Talks About the Reason ‘Black Adam’ Was Left in the Dust
Holywood is a tough business. We are even seeing it nowadays with the current. Actors’ and writers’ strikes that are happening right at this moment. The strikes don’t seem to have an ending in sight, and the studios keep burning millions of dollars every day. That seems to be a better option than talking through the many points of contention they have with the creatives who have been writing and acting in those countless movies and shows. It seems that Dwayne Johnson and his ‘Black Adam‘ project got caught in a similar situation at Warner Bros.
Dwayne Johnson is one of the most important celebrities on the planet. His face is known throughout the entire world, and so it seems strange that one of his most successful projects, the one that gave him the biggest opening weekend of his career, was left in the dust, and it is now just one more dead project at DC.
Dwayne Johnson visited the set of Hart to Heart, Kevin Hart’s interview show, which has become a very powerful platform for actors to be candid about their situation in Hollywood. In a fantastic interview, Johnson talks about the reason why ‘Black Adam’ is not moving forward under James Gunn’s tenure as the DC Universe Big Boss.
The past couple of years have been quite tough for Warner Bros. The company has seen the DC Universe become a big failure in the eyes of both critics and audiences. The firing of Zack Snyder from Justice League was just the tipping point of a situation that proved that Warner Bros. didn’t know how to compete in the same space as Marvel.
The superhero genre peaked in ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ and the mighty giant is even having trouble now, as audiences seem to prefer moving to other venues and exploring new properties. The Barbenheimer phenomenon might prove that audiences are ready to go to new places.
‘Black Adam’ was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Warner Bros. has been going through a very public passing of the torch. The company got bought by Discovery just a few years ago, and one of the first decisions made by the new owners was to revamp the DC division by choosing a new boss, one that could provide a new vision.
Sadly for Johnson and any ‘Black Adam’ fans out there, that vision didn’t include Johnson’s version of the character. Instead, James Gunn has chosen a sort of soft reboot, where very specific properties from the past era remain, while new versions of the most popular characters like Superman and Batman will also appear.
You know what it is? It’s like new ownership coming in and buying an NFL team, going, “Alright. Not my head coach. Not my quarterback. Doesn’t matter how many times we won the Super Bowl. Doesn’t matter how many rings we got. I’m going with somebody else.”
Dwayne Johnson on Hart to Heart
However, it seems that the possibility for Black Adam to appear in some way while using the Multiverse format seems to be on the table. Nevertheless, we better not hold out breath. DC films and shows continue to be a bit of a mess, and while James Gunn is trying to fix things, only time will give us the answer we seek. Can a healthy DC Universe of films and TV series be possible?
Do you lament ‘Black Adam’ not moving forward? Or do you think keeping Dwayne Johnson and his version of the character behind as DC moves to a new phase in their history on the screen was the better choice?
