With each new superhero film made by Warner Bros. and DC Films, the DCEU continues to fumble its way towards the endzone Marvel has conquered so many times, however, those dark times may be close to an end considering the DC booked real-life superhero and college football player Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to help carry Black Adam into people’s hearts.
The Rock is, after all, the second most famous man in the world, with his 250 million Instagram followers only putting him behind football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo in this particular popularity contest. Thus, it would appear to be almost a no-brainer to sub-in the world’s most recognizable actor into the most profitable and popular type of film, superhero movies.
The matter becomes more complicated when one starts to think that for all his merits in his incredibly successful acting career, Johnson is still a rather one-dimensional actor by most modern standards. This is a trap that Marvel’s own MCU was quick to avoid since, despite the relative risk behind the then-controversial Robert Downey Jr. for Iron Man, he like most Avengers possessed greater and undisputed range in the variety of roles they were known for.
Iron Man was initially joined by The Incredible Hulk starring the equally multifaceted Edward Norton, but by the time the Avengers were fully assembled the group had also brought in Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo, plus the lesser-known Chrises to play Thor and Captain America, both of whom already possed wider-ranged acting credits or went on to claim them after their big break with the MCU. As the superhero film genre grew, so did the casting opportunities for lauded actors like Benedict Cumberbatch or Chadwick Boseman.
Johnson is for all intents and purposes viewed by the general public as an action star, a cross he must bear due to gaining initial recognition for his over-the-top wrestling persona that gave him the coolest nickname in show business. And yet, it was Johnson himself who at some point tried to distance himself from “The Rock” moniker because he felt it limited his potential as an actor that might end up being typecast forever because of his physique and wrestling background.
Not that it mattered too much, since that really didn’t stop Johnson from becoming the highest-paid actor over the last 4 years since barely missing out in 2017 to Mark Wahlberg. Regardless, all that happened with The Rock playing very similar roles where he’s just a calm badass with a hulking physique willing to defy the very laws of physics in whatever action sequences the writers demand from him.
Dwayne Johnson also happens to be one of the most universally liked people in the world, so much so that some people would actually want him to run for president, all meaning that he’s generally viewed as a good guy. Black Adam, however, is definitely not a good guy after only becoming more of an antihero in recent years but possessing a very villainous origin, so it’s definitely not the immediate superpowered entity one would imagine The Rock playing.
In fact, Johnson’s roles rarely get into bad guy territory with movies like the terrible Doom adaptation, Get Smart, and The Mummy Returns being among the few examples of this. So in Black Adam, The Rock will have to put in a lot of work to make audiences believe this is not the same guy they’ve been watching all these years but instead someone who wants to pummel all the lightning out of Shazam.
Still, The Rock has a lot going for him, most importantly his insane work ethic that keeps this near 50-yeard-old man motivated to get into the best shape of his already formidable life to play Teth-Adam. Johnson is above all things a fierce competitor, so rest assured if The Rock decided he wants to jump in the superhero game, he'll do everything in his power to put Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool to shame as the entertainment's most beloved and profitable antihero.
It bears saying that talent does not necessarily always find its way to opportunity, and while the bulk of Johnson's career has been made up of action hero blockbusters roles, he's also found time to put in at least a couple of radically different performances.
The first of these comes in 2005's Be Cool, a poorly received crime comedy that sees The Rock channel his best acting chops to play a gay Samoan bodyguard who almost single-handedly saves an otherwise forgettable film; the second would his stint in HBO's Ballers which suited up Johnson in business attire for an NFL-centred version of Entourage, and opportunity he seized to prove he can spend a few hours on-screen without blowing anything up.
Perhaps a larger part of what Johnson's role in Black Adam will be like shall be defined by the movie's screenplay writers and director Jaume Collet-Serra. Whatever the case, it provides The Rock with a well-deserved chance to show he can also play a morally complex character without sacrificing his ability to do what he does best, absolutely marveling moviegoers with crazy stunts and crazy action, especially now that he'll be getting superpowers that rival Superman to go along with his iconic eyebrow game.