Has anyone told Dwayne Johnson that Black Adam, the DC Comics character he’s been meaning to play for years, is not only a bad guy but a pretty unrepentant bad guy who likes being bad, even when he may have moderately good intentions? Because it really doesn’t seem like it. The newest piece of evidence is an Instagram photo that Johnson shared of a concept art poster for his Black Adam movie—supposedly unrelated to Shazam!, even though that’s like making a Joker movie without Batman—which features a caption from the Rock himself in which he offers a little rundown of his Superman fandom and his realization that he’s too “rebellious” to be a boy scout hero like the Man Of Steel. Enter Black Adam, who Johnson says is his kind of hero because he will “always do what’s right for the people” but “does it his way.”
In the comics, Black Adam is often depicted as sort of a Doctor Doom-like supervillain tyrant, or even just a regular “take over the world!”-type supervillain with no deeper aspirations, but the short version is that he’s basically evil Shazam. Don’t believe us? Just look at the damn art in the poster Johnson shared: He’s floating over some kind of ruined structure with skeletons, and he’s surrounded by dark clouds! That’s not what a good guy looks like! He might start evil and turn good, but it seems odd that Johnson is like “he’s a hero who does things his own way!” as he’s sharing a poster of a guy who looks like he used lightning bolts to blow up a building.
Anyway, the poster also mentions a release date for Black Adam, specifically December 22, 2021, which is not actually too far off.