Being Black Adam could prove Dwayne Johnson’s toughest career choice yet. When the champion wrestler-turned-Hollywood superstar returns to the big screen with his DCEU debut in the title role of Black Adam, he seeks to reverse the image that catapulted him to global success. For a change, although he is star of the show, he will play an antihero as Black Adam.
From The Scorpion King two decades ago to Jungle Cruise last year, Johnson’s larger-than-life action heroism on the big screen has normally been about essaying the good guy who stands up against evil. It is a screen image that has won him a universal fan base, particularly among young adults and children. Black Adam, incidentally, is also about action heroism and demolishing evil. Only, here Johnson bends every rule he needs to in order to have his way. In the film, The actor plays Teth Adam, or Black Adam, from the ancient city of Kahndaq. Freed from a 5,000-year imprisonment, he sets out to destroy everything that he feels is wrong. His sense of justice is brutal and he is ready to kill anyone who tries stopping him, which stamps him as a villain than a hero. The Justice Society Of America, or JSA, comprising Doctor Fate, Hawkman, Cyclone and Atom-Smasher, decide they must thwart Black Adam.
Comicbook superheroes on screen have almost always stayed on the right side of the morality curve barring stray departures, mostly because the mass majority that dictates the box office prefers it that way. At DCEU (DC Extended Universe), the bosses toyed with Suicide Squad, spinning a bleak and violent adventure about a bunch of baddies out to save the world but the film saw underwhelming response. Johnson, who was originally signed in 2014 to portray Black Adam as a villain in Shazam!, clearly realised the mighty test at hand when a full-fledged film centred on his character was locked around three years later. The stakes were higher for the action star by 2017 and he, not surprisingly, chose to turn executive producer for the project.
In a move that makes commercial sense, Johnson smartly mentioned one of DC’s biggest heroes during his film’s promotional run-up while positioning Black Adam as an antihero. At the San Diego Comic-Con this year, the actor indirectly said he looked forward to a Superman versus Black Adam fight at some point. The assertion made for big news, given the long-drawn confusion among fans over whether Henry Cavill would indeed return as Superman in the future. Meanwhile, Johnson’s wish for a showdown with Superman on screen threw social media in a tizzy, all the more because rumours preceding Comic Con had suggested Cavill, too, would turn up to promote Black Adam. Wild conjectures had started over whether Cavill as Superman was back in DC’s plan of action, and would return through a cameo opposite Johnson as Black Adam’s adversary. Unconfirmed rumours on Twitter claimed Cavill would return in a post-credit cameo of Black Adam. Still others felt a showdown between Superman and Black Adam was too exclusive an idea to be wasted as a cameo fight — it would have to comprise the core plot of an entire film.
In any case, Johnson’s strategy had clicked. Social media has been actively discussing Black Adam and Superman in the same breath for months now. The whole idea to pitch Black Adam as Superman’s equal, as an antithesis of the Man Of Steel, has kept Johnson’s film in the limelight. There’s another aspect to this. With ongoing issues with Cavill yet to be straightened out, a new solo Superman film is yet to be confirmed. Johnson knows DCEU could do with another marquee icon besides Batman at this point and Black Adam, with its massive hype and unusual comicbook flavour, could be an apt choice.
While the film imagines Black Adam as an antihero, the character actually had started off as an outright villain in DC comics. The idea of an out-and-out villain would perhaps be too risky for Johnson at this stage of his career. As a mainstream Hollywood star, the 50-year-old actor is at the peak of his popularity but there are still a few steps to climb. An insider.com report earlier this year stated Johnson’s Black Adam paycheque of over $22.5 million sees him end the year at the fifth spot. Tom Cruise with a $100 million-plus take-home for Top Gun: Maverick is at the top of the heap, while Will Smith ($35 million for Emancipation), Leonardo DiCaprio ($30 million for Killers Of The Flower Moon) and Brad Pitt ($30 million for Joseph Kosinski’s untitled Formula 1 film) are ahead of Johnson in 2022. He is, however, poised to climb a few positions next year, with the release of Red One. The film is an action comedy — a comfort zone for Johnson — and his paycheque for the project is rumoured to be around $50 million. For now, Johnson will be happy with the fact that Black Adam makes him the highest-paid star in DCEU, ahead of Jason Momoa (who earns $15 million for Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom) and Joaquin Phoenix ($20 million for Joker 2).
The big money stakes involved could be why Johnson is taking no chance when it comes to wooing the fans. Speaking to cinemablend.com, he said the very differently positioned Black Adam is meant to mark a new era for DC fans. “I have been saying for some time, there’s a new era in the DC Universe that’s about to begin, and what I meant by that was introducing a brand new character. It’s not a sequel, not an existing IP. It was, you know, Black Adam. Two years ago the world had no idea who he was. We did, but not, you know, the rest of the mass out there. Introducing the JSA, introducing that new era of the DC universe. But also what I really meant by, ‘This is a new era in the DC Universe’, is listening to the fans. Listening to the fans and doing our best to give the fans what they want,” he said.
The buzz around “new era” works for DCEU, too. Beyond unconfirmed Twitter spoilers over Superman’s post-credit return, Black Adam is all set to expand the DC expand in other ways, too. The introduction of the Justice Society Of America (JSA) is a prime attraction. Pierce Brosnan, who missed the bus on playing Batman in the Tim Burton film of 1989, finally joins the DC bandwagon as Doctor Fate. Brosnan’s character toplines the JSA along with Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone, Aldis Hodge as Hawkman and Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher. The JSA is a vital part of DCEU, and its existence would be important for subsequent introduction of several popular characters including the supervillain Darkseid.
Those are challenges for DC to consider in their upcoming phase. Dwayne Johnson, meanwhile, perhaps fancies a Black Adam V Superman adventure next, in the lines of Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. For now, however, he has a challenge far more powerful than Superman to contend with, and that’s the worldwide box office.
(Black Adam is scheduled to release in theatres on 20 October, 2022)
Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist and film journalist based in Delhi-NCR.
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