Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been officially attached to play Black Adam in the DC Extended Universe for five years. However, following the critical acclaim Shazam! received earlier this year, Black Adam’s timetable started accelerating, and now Johnson has revealed when the spinoff will begin shooting: next summer.
In response to a fan sharing his sculpture of what he imagines Dwayne Johnson will look like as Black Adam, the wrestler-turned-acting superstar complimented the artist, noted how this project’s been with him for over 10 years (remember, there was a Black Adam movie in development last decade, with Peter Segal attached to direct) and informed the masses on Twitter that the movie will kick off production this coming July.
We already had a loose time frame regarding when Black Adam would start rolling cameras, as both Dwayne Johnson and producer Hiram Garcia had previously said the goal was to get the ball rolling by the end of 2020. Well, a July start state seemingly indicates that things are progressing more quickly than anticipated.
By the time he steps in front of the camera as Black Adam for the first time, 13 years will have passed since Dwayne Johnson’s connection to the Kahndaqian antagonist/anti-hero was born. When the wider DCEU first started coming together after Man of Steel’s release and ahead of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Johnson was given the choice to play either Shazam or Black Adam, and he decided to stick with the latter.
Originally the plan was for Shazam to fight Black Adam in the first Shazam! movie, but by January 2017, the DCEU brass announced that Black Adam would instead debut in his own movie. However, the man originally known as Teth-Adam was still teased during Shazam! when The Wizard told Billy Batson about how his previous champion unleashed the Seven Deadly Sins on the world thousands of years ago.
It remains to be seen when Shazam and Black Adam will finally clash on the big screen, though Zachary Levi, who plays Billy Batson in his superhero form, suspects it won’t happen until Shazam! 3. Regardless, because Black Adam has spent the last several decades for developing into a character who’s more than just Shazam/Captain Marvel’s nemesis, we’ll get to know him quite well in his standalone movie, and perhaps even in a sequel.
So far no official Black Adam plot details have been revealed yet, but it’s expected that at least part of the story will explore the eponymous lead’s origins. It was also rumored earlier this year that the Black Adam script includes Hawkman, Stargirl and Atom Smasher, all of whom he has history with in the comics from Geoff Johns’ run on the Justice Society of America.
Behind the camera, Jungle Cruise’s Jaume Collet-Serra is directing Black Adam and Undateable’s Adam Sztykiel wrote the script. Assuming that production does indeed begin by next January, that means Black Adam could be ready for a late 2021 release, though dropping sometime in 2022 seems more reasonable.
Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates about Black Adam, and don’t forget to browse through our DC movies guide.
