Dwayne Johnson’s Next Big Sequel Is Basically Dead
After years of campaigning for the role, this past Fall, Dwayne Johnson was finally able to bring Black Adam to the theaters, unfortunately, the first outing is likely to be the last with massive moves coming out of Warner Bros. Discovery. Reporting from The Hollywood Reporter claims that everything we once knew about the DCU can be tossed aside, as the new creative team of James Gunn and Peter Safran is proposing a huge reset for the entire franchise. If Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Henry Cavill’s Superman are on the chopping block, then it does not look good for the underperforming Black Adam.
Dwayne Johnson’s turn as the anti-hero Black Adam was, just last month, looking like it was going to be a pivotal turning point for the DCU. Not only did the film introduce the Justice Society of America to moviegoing audiences, but the post-credit scene confirmed Henry Cavill was back as the Last Son of Krypton. Under two months from release, and now everything Black Adam set up is being tossed aside for whatever the new creative direction will be under Gunn and Safran.
In mid-October, just before Black Adam was set to debut, Gunn and Safran were given the keys to the DCU kingdom by Warner Bros. Discovery, after the newly created media conglomerate made a series of drastic cost-cutting decisions. Batgirl, a completed movie, was famously thrown out, never to be seen by the public. Even if there was no massive creative shakeup in the DCU, a second Dwayne Johnson Black Adam movie was looking to be unlikely after the box office came in dramatically below expectations.
Black Adam is currently the third-lowest ranked film in the DCU, striking out with critics and fans. While Dwayne Johnson recently tweeted that the film will make $50 million, that is not nearly enough to achieve profitability. Industry insiders report that the film will need to haul in $600 million worldwide in order to start creating a profit for Warner Bros. Discovery.
As each day passes, the odds of Black Adam hitting that mythical number is more and more unlikely. Further imperiling a future Black Adam appearance, whether played by Dwayne Johnson or not, is the cancellation of Gal Gadot’s third Wonder Woman movie and rumors that Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel 2 has also been tossed aside. Both of those superhero franchises had profitable first movies and major roles in other films, including Justice League, so if the new future of the DCU does not include two of its stalwarts, what hope does the underachieving Black Adam realistically have?
A further complication coming up, is the fate of Shazam: Fury of the Gods, the upcoming sequel to Zachary Levi’s surprise hit. Originally the film was going to include an appearance of Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and, according to rumors, continue to set the stage for the grand re-emergence of a more comics accurate Superman. Dwayne Johnson’s character, despite being intimately tied to Shazam in the comics, was never going to appear, and now, may never be seen again.
