After Black Adam landed on HBO Max, the possibility that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s superhero debut might have lost Warner Bros. some money is starting to look like a reality, and though the usual secrecy that governs Hollywood studios has kept the actual numbers under wraps, it’s safe to say this DC blockbuster was a disappointment on the business end.
Surely, while fans have grown accustomed to DC projects not exactly turning out as expected, having Johnson star in a movie that sees red numbers is practically unheard of, at least in recent memory, which prompts the question of how big the actor’s star power really is. At a time when there’s some debate about what “movie star status” means, Black Adam appears to suggest not even Johnson can rescue an obscure character in a run-of-the-mill superhero flick.
Setting The Stage For Black Adam
Up until the very last day Black Adam lived in James Gunn’s DC Universe, The Rock continued to be an outspoken promoter of his antihero’s potential, even when the prospect of the film becoming unprofitable, he fired back at critics. The same happened when review scores started coming out, showing a large divide between press and audiences, as the latter, like Johnson were willing to accept Black Adam, flaws included.
While this is completely normal for actors nowadays, in Johnson’s case there was a personal attachment to the project he himself had stated spent 12 years in the making, as the actor always saw himself as Black Adam. This is a character that’s not really sympathetic, which in hindsight was the perfect vessel for Johnson to channel the action star persona he’s spent two decades building.
See, unlike the generic action roles he took in earlier busts of his career, such as The Rundown, or the somewhat unimaginative but successful Die Hard clone Skyscraper, Black Adam not only meant something to Johnson, it was a chance to start his very own franchise character. As things stand, the biggest movies Johnson has acted in are five Fast and Furious entries, Jumanji, The Mummy Returns and Moana, which were all films whose names were tied to highly successful properties, except for the Disney voice acting part.
Putting those aside, the biggest Johnson standalone movies are San Andreas and Rampage, but the films that led to him securing bigger roles were actually smaller budget productions a tier below the superhero category. Black Adam was given everything it could have asked for to succeed as the last saving grace of the DCEU, it even got Henry Cavill to suit up as Superman, nevertheless, the resulting box office revenue looks like a typical action movie starring Johnson, only with an inflated budget of $200m.
Although it’d be foolish to strip the highest-paid and most popular actor in Hollywood (at least on social media) of his star status, this movie has shown that contrary to Black Adam himself, a Johnson blockbuster can still bleed, and until he gets the one mega franchise of his very own, he's still below Tom Cruise or other action heroes from a different era.
It’s Not Me It’s You
Once accepted that Black Adam was underwhelming for both DC and Johnson’s lofty standards, figuring out which part of the equation deserves the bigger blame poses an interesting question. When Black Adam premiered the DCEU was still alive and kicking, and save for pandemic era films, it will go down by far as the studio’s worst performer.
In retrospect, and as most reviews suggest, Johnson is perfect to play Black Adam, however, the problem might be that the character doesn’t translate that well from print to cinema given his personality, even in spite of being reworked for a lead role. While Aquaman had the promise of an underwater world and a hero that got its first “badass” makeover with Jason Momoa, or Shazam has the comedic quips no other supe can invoke, Black Adam’s movie adaptation takes place in a very vanilla setting.
At its heart, Black Adam feels like a 90s movie, perhaps its most redeeming quality and what makes it enjoyable, but it fails to establish its identity and that of its character beyond audiences wanting Teth Adam to duke it out with Superman. Simply put, it can be argued that Johnson was dealt a bad hand by lady fortune (or Doctor Fate rather), as Black Adam comes off as the type of B-list movie that Marvel could pull off with the bigger appeal of the MCU, a point that's further driven home in that post-credits scene with Cavill.
Throughout his career, Tom Cruise had far bigger blunders than Black Adam, with Rock of Ages possibly being one of his worst movies, and just like him, Johnson will continue to succeed making the type of films he is known for, no-nonsense action movies. Black Adam’s financial woes should not raise questions about Johnson, it’s merely evidence that DC was trying to salvage the unsalvageable with a good dose of star power.
Black Adam is currently available on HBO Max.