For some time now Dwayne Johnson has been attached to play DC’s Black Adam for Warner Brothers, but in a recent interview a producer talked about the status of the movie and if it’s still happening.

Dwayne Johnson aka “The Rock” one of the few bankable actors in Hollywood today, but like any movie star is prone to having his films struggle at the theaters has been set to star as Black Adam since September of 2014.

Originally Black Adam was to make its feature film debut in Shazam!, but it was later decided that Shazam and Black Adam would both have their own movies before going one on one with each other.

In a recent interview over at Collider, producer Hiram Garcia, The president of production for Seven Bucks Productions (with Johnson and Dany Garcia as co-CEOs and founders) talked about the Black Adam movie and its status.

“Black Adam is definitely happening. We’re actually very deep into a script on it right now, which is coming along really well. I’m really excited with the story we’ve crafted. Look, I’ve always been a huge comic book fan. I’ve always had this dream, I’ve always wanted to—You know, you kind of have like these goals of like, ‘One day I’d love to be able to do this and this,’ and making a superhero movie was definitely always one of my dreams. For the longest time, you know you kind of have this living superhero in Dwayne Johnson, so I was always trying to figure out what’s the perfect character that will kind of fit him and his look and his build and his kind of edge and the attitude he’s got.”

Garcia also talked about why the role of “Balck Adam” was right for Dwayne Johnson.

“Black Adam just made kind of great sense. It was this kind of really cool antihero, kicks ass, who believes in basically exacting justice in his way with a fascinating backstory, the history he has with regards to having been a former slave and freeing his people and then getting his abilities and what happened from there. So I pitched that to Dwayne early on, and he loved the idea, and we’ve just kind of kept it in the back of our mind. We had a great conversation with Warner Brothers one time years ago, and we all settled on this was our character.”

If you were looking forward to Shazam and then lost interest when you found out Black Adam would not be the movies villain, Garcia explains how that decision came about.

“So as we were developing an actual Black Adam and Shazam movie, we were just realizing that both characters are so special that we didn’t want to compromise either of them by cramming them both into the same movie. So that’s why we made the decision to let Shazam have his own standalone movie and kind of launch him properly, and then we’ll do the same for Black Adam. And so that kind of really freed things up. It allowed us to develop the right version of both.”

Now that we have gotten the first trailer for Shazam back in July at San Diego Comic Con, Garcia says the script for Black Adam is coming along and that the studio is excited.

“So where we are now with Black Adam is we just got our latest script [from Adam Sztykiel]. We’re doing some revisions on it. We’re extremely excited about it, the studio’s very excited about it. And I’m telling you man, as a comic book fan, when this thing comes out, it is going to be amazing (laughs). This is the fanboy in me talking to you, it’s going to deliver on the goods of everything you’d want to see Black Adam do, he’s going to be doing in this film.”

Dwayne Johnson as “Black Adam”

Reggie’s Take:
First I want to say that I’m looking forward to seeing Shazam! when it hits theaters in April. I enjoyed the first trailer, but it also left me with a few doubts concerning the movie. Granted it was just the first trailer and my concerns could turn out to be completely non-existent, but that’s Shazam.

As far as Black Adam is concerned and the interview producer Hiram Garcia gave to the fine folks over at Collider, I say okay, but my excitement and expectations will remain in check at least for now.

Garcia’s answers and explanations as to the status of the Black Adam movie and whether or not the film is moving forward was nothing more then good publicity. I’m assuming that Garcia will be heavily involved with Black Adam and that’s fine, but like a politician what else was he supposed to say concerning a movie that Warner Brothers says is still coming. Since it was announced all the way back in 2014 that Dwayne Johnson was taking on the role of Black Adam the only other news we’ve gotten concerning the film was that the character would not be appearing in the Shazam! movie, but would get his own movie instead.

Okay, on the surface that sounds great, but just because a producer comes out and says “Yes” the “Black Adam” movie is still moving forward doesn’t guarantee that at some point Warner Brothers still won’t pull the plug on it. I could be totally wrong, but I’m willing to bet that Warner Brothers is waiting to see how good or bad Shazam! does before fully committing to the Black Adam movie.

If Shazam! comes out and gets great reviews with critics and is loved by the audience then I have no doubt that Warner Brothers will officially give Black Adam a release date and that they look forward to see Dwayne Johnson kick ass in his first superhero movie.

But if Shazam! comes out and fails at the box office and with critics then I wouldn’t be surprised to see Warner Brothers put Black Adam on the shelf or just make no announcement what so ever.

After Justice League’s disappointing returns and the lack of success with the DCEU in general I doubt Warner Brothers will move blindly ahead with Black Adam if Shazam! falters in anyway.

Categories: Movies

Tags: Black Adam, DC Extended Universe, Dwayne Johnson, Movies, Warner Brothers