Black Adam fans have been waiting a long time for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s iteration of the character to debut on the big screen, with the wrestler-turned-Hollywood star being officially confirmed to play the powerhouse anti-hero in the DC Extended Universe back in 2014. The last year has seen the Black Adam movie taking some meaningful steps forward, but now it’s looking like the wait for this comic book flick will be a little longer due to current events.
It’s no secret that the health crisis has hit the entertainment industry hard, with not just many movies that were ready to be screened to the public having to delay their theatrical releases, but numerous productions either having to shut down indefinitely or change their timetables. In the case of Black Adam, Dwayne Johnson announced late last year that the movie was set to come out on December 22, 2021, with filming beginning either in August or September.
However, according to sources who spoke with THR, Netflix is gearing up to resume production on Red Notice, which sees Dwayne Johnson starring opposite Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, in Georgia, where Johnson lives. Once Johnson’s done with Red Notice, then he’ll move on to Black Adam, but this means that the DC project likely won’t begin filming until next year, which will almost certainly mean the release date needs to be pushed back as well.
Considering that Red Notice had been shooting for a little over two months before the pandemic interfered with operations, it’s perfectly understandable why Dwayne Johnson is eager to finish up that project before moving to Black Adam. Presumably there’s not a whole lot more footage that needs to be captured, whereas Black Adam has yet to go through any of principal photography. It’s easy to pick which job takes priority.
Still, this adds another obstacle in the journey to making Black Adam, and don’t forget that Dwayne Johnson was once being set up to play the eponymous character in an earlier version of the Shazam! movie (years before the DCEU came to be). In other words, this has been a long time coming, but since Black Adam is one of the higher priority DC movies in development, it’s more a matter of when it finally sees the light of day rather than if.
Originally the plan was for Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam to debut in Shazam!, but it was later decided that the character was worthy of his own movie first, resulting in the superpowered Billy Batson instead going up against Doctor Sivana and the Seven Deadly Sins during his origin story. However, there was a brief tease to the man originally known as Teth-Adam in Shazam! when The Wizard told Billy about how the last championed he’s bequeathed powers to became corrupted.
While no Black Adam plot details have been revealed yet, it was announced earlier this month that To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before star Noah Centineo will play Atom Smasher, with other members of the Justice Society of America expected to appear alongside him. Behind the scenes, Jungle Cruise’s Jaume Collet-Serra is directing Black Adam and Undateable’s Adam Sztykiel wrote the script.
Should Black Adam’s release be delayed, we here at CinemaBlend will be sure to let you know. For now, keep track of the other DC Comics-related movies on the way with our handy guide.
