The actor Dwayne Johnson is fighting like his superhero Black Adam. The actor, who fought to have his character get his own origin story, will be joining the DC universe in a feature film about the antihero.
“When the first draft of the movie came to us, it was a combination of Black Adam and Shazam: Two origin stories in one movie,” Johnson told Vanity Fair. “Now that was the goal, so it wasn’t a complete surprise. But when I read that, I just knew in my gut, ‘We can’t make this movie like this. We would be doing Black Adam an incredible disservice.’ It would’ve been fine for Shazam having two origin stories converge in one movie, but not good for Black Adam.”
Johnson would later speak with studio executives to share his thoughts on separating the characters into their own movies and uniting them in a potential future showdown.
“I said, ‘I have to share my thoughts here. It’s very unpopular’ because everybody thought, ‘Hey, this script is great, let’s go make this movie.’ I said, ‘I really think that you should make Shazam!, make that movie on its own in the tone that you want. And I think we should separate this as well.’”
In the end, Johnson prevailed, and Shazam! and Black Adam will each have their own standalone movies and exist in the same DC universe, satisfying the demands of fans.
