Note to studio executives: When you have The Rock in your corner, you use him as often as possible. With the DCEU stringing Dwayne Johnson along as its proposed Black Adam, fans of both the blockbuster action star and the Shazam property kept wondering WHEN we'd see Rocky as Black Adam, the villainous anti-hero who often fights Shazam. Well, while answers are blowing in the wind at the moment, we at least are able to confirm that The Rock will be in multiple DC movies because New Line is giving Black Adam his own solo movie in addition to the Shazam film.
That's right. DC is doubling down on its doses of Dwayne Johnson, with THR reporting that after its recent meetings with The Rock, New Line decided that in addition to featuring him in Shazam, Black Adam would get his OWN movie. The trade notes that part of the decision comes from the fact that when they locked The Rock up to play the role, it was 2009, and he was a big star, but not a global sensation. Since then, Johnson has blown up, and relegating him to a villain's role wasn't the best use of his talents.
How, exactly, would this work? If you follow our writings on CinemaBlend, you know that we track the ongoing schedule issues of the DCEU, which -- at last count -- had seven projects floating in some form of development limbo... eight, now that you add a Black Adam solo movie to the mix. Borys Kit of The Hollywood Reporter clarifies on Twitter:
So Shazam, which currently has no director or leading man to play Shazam, wouldn't feature Black Adam... or not feature him prominently. Maybe it would be a traditional origin story instead, with a tease for Black Adam down the road. And if they filmed concurrently, then the Black Adam movie could come out within weeks of Shazam, and one could feed into the other?
Borys Kit also suggested that, because DC has its hooks into The Rock, Black Adam could appear on screen sooner than we thought -- maybe even in James Wan's Aquaman:
Now we need release dates. THR says that Shazam has a script that is being worked on by Henry Gayden, but there is no screenwriter or director attached to Black Adam as of yet. Right now, The Flash and Aquaman are the last two movies on DC's film slate to have set release dates (though The Flash needs a director). DC loves to collect potential movie projects. They just don't like to tell us when they are really happening.
