Even if you don’t count the years when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was in talks to appear in a Shazam movie several years of the DC Extended Universe’s creation, the Hollywood superstar has been attached to play Black Adam for over half a decade. In early 2017, it was announced that rather than Black Adam serving as Shazam!’s main antagonist, the Kahndaqian anti-hero would instead make his theatrical debut in his own movie, which has been making significant progress over the last year. Now word’s come in on when Black Adam will finally start rolling cameras after all this time.
Producer Hiram Garcia, who co-runs Seven Bucks Productions with Dwayne Johnson, spoke with Comicbook.com about where Black Adam currently stands in the creative process, and it turns out that principal photography is only weeks away from kicking off. Garcia said:
We're getting started soon, you know actually, we begin filming in April, we'll be in Georgia, home away from home. We're really excited, man, we have everything is ramped up, we're so fired up for this.
Had to COVID-19 pandemic not wreaked havoc on the film industry, Black Adam would have started filming in summer 2020. However, because the spread of the coronavirus resulted in Dwayne Johnson’s upcoming Netflix movie Red Notice having to pause production from March to September of last year, it became necessary to alter the Black Adam timetable. But Johnson finished his work on Red Notice in November, so the Black Adam team was able to regroup and start planning for the DC movie’s April shoot in Georgia. No doubt a lot of effort was also spent in the last few months ensuring that the proper health and safety guidelines are in place for Black Adam’s principal photography to reduce the chances of there being any COVID-related issues.
While Hiram Garcia wasn’t willing to share any new, specific details about Black Adam, he did express excitement at getting to see Dwayne Johnson try on the Black Adam suit over a Zoom call. Garcia then shared why Johnson was the perfect actor to bring Black Adam to life with the following:
The guy's a walking superhero right, and if there was ever anyone born to play a character, it's him. We've been developing Black Adam who knows how many... I feel like it's been close to like a decade at this point we've been talking about this and on it and you see him in that and you're like, 'That's him, that's why we've been waiting, that's why we've been working so hard to make this happen.' This guy is Black Adam and he is going to change the DC Universe buddy. He's gonna change that thing.
Along with delving thousands of years into the past to show how the man once known as Teth-Adam gained his amazing powers in ancient Kahndaq, the Black Adam movie will also see its eponymous protagonist clashing with the Justice Society of America, which consists of Aldis Hodge’s Hawkman, Noah Centineo’s Atom Smasher, Quintessa Swindell’s Cyclone and a yet-to-be-officially-revealed actor playing Doctor Fate. But beyond that, it’s hard to say what’s in store for Black Adam’s first DCEU outing, and it also hasn’t been revealed yet when he’ll fight Zachary Levi’s Shazam. Still, considering how long Dwayne Johnson has been waiting to play Black Adam, it must be a relief for him that filming is finally about to begin.
Black Adam was previously expected to come out on December 22, 2021, but now it’s undated. We’ll be sure to let you know when a new release date is announced, but in the meantime, look through our DC movies guide to learn what else this superhero franchise has coming up.
