Dwayne Johnson Celebrates the Success of SHAZAM! and Says BLACK ADAM Will Start Shooting in a Year
I think that it’s safe to say that the future of Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam film hinged on the success of DC’s Shazam! Well, Shazam! ended up being a great film, and it delivered at the box office on its opening weekend exceeding expectations!
Johnson has been attached to play Black Adam for years, and after learning about the success of Shazam! he took to instagram to share a video showing gratitude to the fans for showing up to watch the movie and in the process offered an update on Black Adam, which he says will start shooing in about a year.
Those who know the comic books and the mythology of the comics of Shazam know that Shazam is connected to Black Adam. Black Adam is an anti-hero, or villain, who I cannot wait to play. I've been developing this, and it's been with me and my DNA for over 10 years now. We should start shooting that in about a year.
That’s great news! It’ll be awesome to see how Johnson and his team handle Black Adam, and it will be even more awesome when we eventually see Shazam! and Black Adam face-off with each other on the big screen! We probably won’t see that happen until the Shazam! sequel, though.
Johnson explained that the plan was to originally introduce Shazam! and Black Adam at the same time in Shazam!, but there were complications in the creative process that prevented that from happening. They were having issues packing two big origin stories into one movie so they decided to split it up into two movies. Johns said:
“This project, Shazam, we had some challenges and we took a risk. And that risk is, as we were developing this a few years ago, the challenges and the struggles that we were having and that was gnawing at my gut is that we were trying to tell two origin stories in one script.... The challenges were, as you guys can imagine, you're trying to tell two very big origin stories in the world of comic books of this DC universe. Two very important characters trying to tell both their origin stories in one script. I didn't think it was working. Finally I called up Warner Bros., Toby Emmerich, my good buddy who runs Warner Bros., and I said, 'Brother, we have to split these stories and make two different movies.' He said, 'You know what? It is a great idea and let's do it.’”
I’m actually fine with the fact that they split the stories up. That was a smart move. Warner Bros. has yet find a director for Black Adam, but they do have a script being written by Adam Sztykiel (Due Date, Rampage). Personally, I would love to see then bring Shazam! director David F. Sandberg back to direct Black Adam.
What did you all think of Shazam! and are you looking forward to watching Dwayne Johnson kick ass as Black Adam? I just can’t wait to see Johnson rocking that Black Adam hair!