Is Black Adam doomed for one and done? Why a sequel may not be on the cards

Ahead of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, it is worth looking at the last DC movie, Black Adam. Or rather, how quickly it got buried. It has been only half a year since the Dwayne Johnson-starrer hit theatres worldwide, but the landscape of DC movies has changed radically. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and scripted by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani, the film has been a long time coming. It had been in development in one form or another since the early 2000s, and even Johnson had been attached to portray the character since 2007. But when it did come, it landed not with a bang but with a thud. 

Also Read: Black Adam movie review: Dwayne Johnson's action-packed DC movie is let down by a subpar script

The movie was Johnson's pet project and he wanted to build a DC universe around the movie.

What was Black Adam about?

Johnson portrays the role of Teth-Adam or Black Adam, an ancient antihero who lived in a fictional North African nation 5000 years ago, and is now reawakened after an imprisonment of 5000 years, and is this furious. He comes in conflict with the Justice Society of America.

Black Adam, both a critical and commercial failure?

Black Adam was made on a hefty budget of $190–260 million and could only gross $393 million worldwide. That sounds decent until one considers the cut of theatrical chains and distributors. The film was also panned by critics, with only a 39 per cent rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus read, "Black Adam may end up pointing the way to an exciting future for DC films, but as a standalone experience, it's a wildly uneven letdown."

What was the plan of DCEU beyond Black Adam?

By the time Black Adam was up for release, the hierarchy of power at, um, Warner Bros had changed. Warner Bros was not Warner Bros Discovery, and the new CEO David Zaslav wanted to change plans. He wanted DCEU (DC Extended Universe) to be more like MCU, and thus hired James Gunn and Peter Safran to lead the new company DC Studios. With Black Adam, Johnson wanted to set up a Superman vs Black Adam confrontation. And indeed poor Henry Cavill appeared at the end of the movie, and announced his return on Instagram. But sadly, it was not to be. And Gunn made it clear that Cavill will not be the Superman of the DCU (DC Universe) he was building. 

Will there be a Black Adam sequel?

For now, it is extremely unlikely. At least not in the next few years The DCU we are going to see in the coming years is going to be a complete reset of the DCEU. And while Johnson may get to appear in the role once again, it will not be until at least half a decade. The reason is the DCEU Black Adam was part of is now just dead. And to make the sequel less likely, the film was not a success too. If it had been a hit, Johnson could have argued with the bosses at WBD for a sequel. So, for now, Black Adam 2 is dead in the water. 
 

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