Dwayne Johnson on Black Adam 2's unfortunate fate amidst WB leadership changes: We created a...

Dwayne Johnson recently discussed the unfortunate fate of the Black Adam sequel, which faced difficulties due to changes in leadership at Warner Bros. Discovery. Johnson appeared on Kevin Hart's show, where he shared his passion for the character and the long process of bringing the film to life. Before its release in October 2022, Johnson had plans to expand the character's presence in the DC Universe, but everything changed when James Gunn and Peter Safran took over and reshaped the DC Studios slate. When asked about how he felt regarding the franchise being put on hold, Johnson expressed that Black Adam got entangled in the complexities of new leadership. 

“Black Adam got caught in a vortex of new leadership. And at that time, as we were creating Black Adam, developing it, shooting Black Adam … it was so many changes in leadership. And as you know, anytime you have a company, but especially that size and magnitude that’s a publicly traded company, and you have all those changes in leadership, you have people coming in who, creatively and fiscally, are going to make decisions that you may not agree with," he said.

Johnson stressed that the Black Adam sequel was caught in this web of new leadership, and its cancellation remains a significant mystery to him. Despite the movie being one of his career's biggest openings and receiving an 88 per cent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, it didn't meet expectations. Although it earned $391 million globally at the box office, it received poor reviews from critics with a score of 38 per cent.

“You have the biggest opening of your career. Sure, no China, that could’ve been maybe 100, maybe 200 million more dollars,” he added. “You’re establishing a new superhero and you want to grow out the franchise. You bring back Superman and Henry Cavill – the world went crazy. … We created a diverse superhero portfolio, where we have just men and women of colour in Black Adam 2 as well," he added.

What was Black Adam about?

Black Adam marked Johnson's grand debut in superhero films. He portrayed the role of Teth-Adam or Black Adam, an ancient antihero who lived in a fictional North African nation of 5000 years ago, and is now reawakened. Black Adam, the character, is an archenemy of Shazam and was expected to face Superman as well.  

Apart from Johnson himself, Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindell, Bodhi Sabongui, and Pierce Brosnan also starred in Black Adam. 

Black Adam review

WION's review of the movie read, "..it is the script that is the Achilles heel of Black Adam. It tells a typical, hackneyed origin tale of a superhero (or more accurately, antihero) that is almost entirely without surprises. It looks to be a rehash of countless superhero pics from the last decade or so. It is also painfully predictable, and does not even attempt a lot to do anything terribly new. If you are looking for anything fresh in the plot, you'd be better off looking elsewhere."

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