Even though “Black Adam” wasn’t the biggest bomb of 2022, it might be the most embarrassing, in hindsight. Not only was it a superhero film that did poorly with critics and underperformed at the box office, but it also was quickly dismissed by the new co-CEOs of DC Studios, James Gunn and Peter Safran, effectively erasing the best part about the film—the reintroduction of Henry Cavill as Superman. Basically, history will show that “Black Adam” was a monumental miss for Dwayne Johnson, as well as being the film that led to the embarrassment of Cavill.
However, it seems, based on an interview with Variety, that Dwayne Johnson is taking his “Black Adam” failure in stride. Gone are the days of him posting incessantly on social media about how the box office looks good and don’t believe what other people are saying and [insert whatever other excuse he made for the film not performing well]. It appears The Rock has come to terms with the fact that “Black Adam” came and went and, ultimately, didn’t matter very much in the grand scheme of superhero films.
“All that I can do, and all that we could do when we were making ‘Black Adam,’ was to put our best foot forward and surround ourselves with the best people and deliver the best movie we could,” Johnson said. “Our audience score was in the 90s. Critics took a couple shots, but that’s just the business of it.”
As mentioned, it didn’t really matter how much “Black Adam” made at the box office or if it was a big critical success because when Gunn and Safran took over DC Studios, it became clear that Dwayne Johnson’s superhero character didn’t have a place in the new DCU. And again, Johnson seems to understand that and likens it to a common move in sports.
He added, “It’s almost like when you have a pro football team and your quarterback wins championships and your head coach wins championships and then a new owner comes in and says, ‘Not my coach, not my quarterback. I’m going to go with somebody new.’”
At the end of the day, the “Black Adam” situation is actually a bit sad. Johnson put so much time and effort into make the film—the development process took more than a decade. Then he hyped the film up for months, talking about how “Black Adam” was going to have major changes for the DC film universe. Hell, the film itself even sets up the idea of a massive Superman vs. Black Adam fight in a future film. Then, within a matter of weeks, the bad reviews came in, the box office faltered, and then the new DC Studios regime cleaned house and started over.
But hey, The Rock is still one of the most famous people on the planet, so we assume he’ll do just fine.