As Dwayne Johnson puts it, bringing Black Adam to the big screen was a struggle from start to finish. And one he couldn’t have done without the help of his market-ready wrestling personality The Rock.
The origins of Black Adam Go almost back to The Rock’s time in WWE, which ended with a third heel turn marked by Hollywood fame. In 2007, Johnson began discussions with New Line Cinema about a planned Shazam film. At this point, the wrestler became an actor The Scorpio King, The Rundownand the more family-friendly Gridiron Gang under his belt, and the film, which would tell the story of Shazam (aka Captain Marvel) and Black Adam, would have a lighter tone under the eyes of comedy director Peter Segal (who would later work with Johnson). get smart). Johnson was reportedly being courted to play the Shazam character but saw more potential in Black Adam. But the film would languish in development hell for a decade. Johnson says the version we’re getting this October is “not at all” the original plans for the character.
“The film that finally came out after years of deliberation, talk and struggle was Shazam and Black Adam in a film that tried to tell both origin stories within 100 minutes,” Johnson tells Polygon. “And it felt like it was just thrown together. It didn’t feel like it had the priority and respect that both characters and both origin stories needed.”
Johnson says despite all the back-and-forth, a screenplay for the double feature film wasn’t finished until six or seven years ago. The draft prompted him to call Warner Bros. executives and question the entire idea of the project.
“I said, ‘I think we really need to go in a different direction. I think we should split this up and do two films,’” Johnson recalled. “[The script] was funnier, and that made it really difficult. The Black Adam we saw on our site, the Seven Bucks [Johnson’s production company] Side was that Black Adam was brutal and intense and really pissed off as hell. He lost his family, wiped out. This is his anger. And that was difficult when we were trying to establish that [tone] and we have something completely different here – and that with lots of children!”
Black Adam brings Johnson back to a coarser wavelength. While his career is littered with PG blockbusters (Race to Witch Mountain, tooth fairy, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island) and tent poles for all spectators (the Jumanji films, skyscraper
When I ask Johnson if he looked back to his days as The Rock for inspiration, particularly his iconic 1998 heel turn that paired him with Vince McMahon and transformed his personality into the “corporate champion,” he caves in bit together. “Man, me love that you said that.”
It’s been nearly 20 years since Johnson has been in the wrestling business full-time, but his WWE character is still a role to consider. “The Rock,” he says, played an important role in steering Black Adam away from what he could have been in 2007 – and perhaps closer to what fans of the DC Universe and Johnson are really looking for.
“When I was a heel and when I did that heel twist… people might not agree with my ‘why’ and they might not agree with the things I would do. Wrestling was very different back then. That attitude era was much more intense. We got away with a lot of shit that you couldn’t get away with today. While people might not have approved of Heel Rock, they all understood why he did what he did because I had the opportunity to talk about it — and talk shit like The Rock did. So there were a lot of parallels. The connection to Black Adam is that you might disagree and interpret him as a supervillain, antihero, protector, even a superhero… You may disagree with his philosophy, but everyone gets it.”
With rock swagger, always Black Adam Screening required a combination of brawn and big talk. From deciding to even do a standalone Black Adam film to including the Justice Society and other well-known DC Comics faces, Johnson said it took his team years to bring their vision to the big screen.
“We fought for a long time and didn’t want to take a ‘no’,” says Johnson. “And here we are.”
Black Adam hits theaters on October 21st.
