Black Adam was supposed to do so much but did so little. I mean that literally the final budget of the film was somewhere around $240-260 million and it only managed to earn $391 million in its theatrical run, despite $140 million opening weekend. Dwayne Johnson had hyped the film simply too much. The film was a financial failure with Warner Bros. Discovery bearing a loss of $50-100 million as the budget mentioned above doesn’t include the insane marketing budgets that today’s films have. Moreover, just after Black Adam’s release there was a leadership change at DC which resulted in a reboot of sorts that made the future of Black Adam bleak. As expected, Dwayne Johnson announced that he is exiting DC at least for now as there is no space for Black Adam in the current slate of the newly formed DCU.
However, the exit wasn’t as cleaned as we were lead to believe. Months after his exit, Dwayne Johnson has finally opened up about his exit and what went wrong with Black Adam.
Black Adam: Everything Is Warner Bros’ Fault?
Dwayne Johnson recently made an appearance on Peacock’s Hart to Heart talk show, where he revealed to the show’s host Kevin Hart why he wouldn’t return as Black Adam in the DCU. The actor said, “I think that 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,’ we got knocked down a little bit because of COVID and the shutdowns, got back up, there were so many changes in leadership.”
Johnson further added, “And as you know, anytime you have a company, but especially that size and magnitude… and you have all those changes in leadership, you have people coming in who, creatively, fiscally, are going to make decisions that you may not agree with, philosophically.” The Rock also mentioned, “So I think ‘Black Adam’ was one of those movies that got caught in that web of new leadership, and that will always be one of the biggest mysteries, not only for me and us on our end, but also throughout our business.”
The Jumanji star also questioned the finances of the matter, “That was a question out of Wall Street, that was a question out of Hollywood, that was a question like ‘Wait a second, you had the biggest opening of your career, sure no China, that could have been a maybe $100, maybe $200 million more. You’re establishing a new superhero, you want to grow out the franchise, you bring back Superman and Henry Cavill – the world went crazy. And also too, you were texting me this on opening weekend, we created a diverse superhero portfolio where you had men and women of color, in ‘Black Adam 2’ as well.”
He further criticized the ruthless nature of the execs, “And I think as business-minded people, you and I are always thinking ‘audience first.’ Yes, we look at and respect the bottom line economically, but also when you think about opportunity, creating opportunity, creating things that are fresh, and delivering things for the audience, which is our number one boss. When that wasn’t looked at through that lens, it makes things a little more challenging for guys like you and me where you’re like, ‘You sure you wanna do this?’”
He finally concluded with, “But at the end of the day, it’s like new ownership coming in, buying an NFL team and going like ‘not my head coach and not my quarterback.’ Doesn’t matter how many times you won the Super Bowl, doesn’t matter how many wins we got, I’m going with somebody else.”
Black Adam is helmed by Jungle Cruise’s Jaume Collett-Serra, and will star Dwayne the Rock Johnson in the lead role of Black Adam. The supporting cast includes Aldis Hodge (The Invisible Man, Underground) as Hawkman, Quintessa Swindell (Trinkets, Euphoria) as Cyclone, Noah Centineo (To All the Boys I Love Before, Charlie’s Angels) as Atom Smasher, and Pierce Brosnan (GoldenEye, Mamma Mia!) as Doctor Fate, with Uli Latukefu, Marwan Kenzari, Mohammed Amer, James Cusati-Moyer, and Bodhi Sabongui have also been cast.
Black Adam is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
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