Black Adam looks likely to lose millions, but DC’s latest blunder might show even Dwayne ‘The Rock’Johnson has his own kryptonite.
After Black Adam debuted on HBO Max, it became possible that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s superhero debut may have cost Warner Bros. some money. Although the customary Hollywood corporate secrecy has kept the exact numbers hidden, it’s safe to conclude that this DC movie was a financial failure.
Fans have undoubtedly gotten accustomed to DC projects not quite working out as planned, but having Johnson feature in a film that performs poorly at the box office is nearly unheard of—at least in recent memory—which raises the question of just how powerful the actor is. In a time when there is some disagreement about what “movie star status” actually entails, Black Adam seems to imply that not even Johnson can save a minor role in a typical superhero movie.
Setting The Stage For Black Adam
The Rock persisted in being an ardent advocate for his antihero’s potential right up until Black Adam’s final day in James Gunn’s DC Universe. Even when the possibility of the movie going bankrupt arose, he shot back at detractors. The same thing occurred when review ratings began to emerge, revealing a significant gap between the public and the press, with the latter, like Johnson, willing to tolerate Black Adam’s defects.
Despite the fact that this is now perfectly normal for performers, in Johnson’s case there was a personal connection to the project that he had said had taken 12 years to finish since the actor had always pictured himself as Black Adam. Johnson was well suited for this unsympathetic figure, which was clear in hindsight to channel the action star persona he’s spent two decades building.
See, unlike the generic action roles he took in earlier busts of his career, such as The Rundown, or the somewhat unimaginative but successful Die Hard clone Skyscraper, Black Adam not only meant something to Johnson, it was a chance to start his very own franchise character. As things stand, the biggest movies Johnson has acted in are five Fast and Furious entries, Jumanji, The Mummy Returns and Moana, which were all films whose names were tied to highly successful properties, except for the Disney voice acting part.
Putting those aside, the biggest Johnson standalone movies are San Andreas and Rampage, but the films that led to him securing bigger roles were actually smaller budget productions a tier below the superhero category. Black Adam was given everything it could have asked for to succeed as the last saving grace of the DCEU, it even got Henry Cavill to suit up as Superman, nevertheless, the resulting box office revenue looks like a typical action movie starring Johnson, only with an inflated budget of $200m.
Although it’d be foolish to strip the highest-paid and most popular actor in Hollywood (at least on social media) of his star status, this movie has shown that contrary to Black Adam himself, a Johnson blockbuster can still bleed, and until he gets the one mega franchise of his very own, he’s still below Tom Cruise or other action heroes from a different era.
It’s Not Me It’s You
Once accepted that Black Adam was underwhelming for both DC and Johnson’s lofty standards, figuring out which part of the equation deserves the bigger blame poses an interesting question. When Black Adam premiered the DCEU was still alive and kicking, and save for pandemic era films, it will go down by far as the studio’s worst performer.
In retrospect, and as most reviews suggest, Johnson is perfect to play Black Adam, however, the problem might be that the character doesn’t translate that well from print to cinema given his personality, even in spite of being reworked for a lead role. While Aquaman had the promise of an underwater world and a hero that got its first “badass” makeover with Jason Momoa, or Shazam has the comedic quips no other supe can invoke, Black Adam’s movie adaptation takes place in a very vanilla setting.
At its heart, Black Adam feels like a 90s movie, perhaps its most redeeming quality and what makes it enjoyable, but it fails to establish its identity and that of its character beyond audiences wanting Teth Adam to duke it out with Superman. Simply put, it can be argued that Johnson was dealt a bad hand by lady fortune (or Doctor Fate rather), as Black Adam comes off as the type of B-list movie that Marvel could pull off with the bigger appeal of the MCU, a point that’s further driven home in that post-credits scene with Cavill.
Throughout his career, Tom Cruise had far bigger blunders than Black Adam, with Rock of Ages possibly being one of his worst movies, and just like him, Johnson will continue to succeed making the type of films he is known for, no-nonsense action movies. Black Adam’s financial woes should not raise questions about Johnson, it’s merely evidence that DC was trying to salvage the unsalvageable with a good dose of star power.
Black Adam is currently available on HBO Max.
Soucre: gamerant.com
