Is Black Adam Officially Done in Gunn's DCU? Here's What The Rock Says
The shakeup of DCU (formerly DCEU) under James Gunn leadership seems to be much more radical that most people expected just a month or two ago.
To be more specific, it looks like that instead of a return to Snyder's plan (for which many fans hoped after the Snyder's cut of Justice League achieved success) we're getting a hard reset. While the new Superman movie is confirmed to be starting from scratch, it is unclear who else might get the same treatment. And so fates of several characters suddenly ended up in limbo.
In particular, it was not clear what was going to happen with Black Adam, the antihero who usually appeared in DC media as an arch-enemy of Shazam, but got his own movie this time, in large part thanks to the efforts of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who starred as the titular character.
The Black Adam movie was panned by critics, but liked by audiences (39% and 88% rating, respectively, on Rotten Tomatoes), but despite such opinion of audiences had a mediocre performance in the box office, earning only about twice its budget (which usually means that the studio broke even, after giving the theatres their cut).
While the movie did not bomb outright, such results made the prospects of further Black Adam appearances on the big screen questionable in the current atmosphere.
So, now Dwayne Johnson himself came forward on his Twitter to clarify those prospects:
"James Gunn and I connected, and Black Adam will not be in their first chapter of storytelling. However, DC and Seven Bucks have agreed to continue exploring the most valuable ways Black Adam can be utilized in future DC multiverse chapters."
This basically means that Black Adam is shelved, with vague prospects of maybe getting revived – or, more likely, featuring in some DC projects in his more typical role of antagonist – sometime in the future.
The fanbase, outside of Dwayne Johnson's own twitter, responded with either resounding silence, or with discussions 99% of which were related to future of DCU as a whole and to what this shelving meant for other characters and properties, rather than to Black Adam, and best summed up as:
"It was pretty obvious that he ain't staying. But this whole month has been wild for DC fans." (via)
Seems like those who evaluated Black Adam as a popcorn flick, enjoyable if you're into superheroes, but ultimately forgettable, were right.