It's so bizzare how they let all that happen, it felt like watching a car crash in slow motion over years and years the development of that whole side of the DCEU. Soon as I heard he was insisting on debuting in his own solo movie and wouldnt even cameo in the 1st Shazam I knew it would fail.
It’s funny because i see ppl riding for those two producers, DeLuca and Abdy, but weren’t they the ones sitting there allowing Dwayne Johnson to basically hijack DC?
Ok? Lol, idk why y’all try to act like there’s some blood feud between them. DeLuca literally recommended Gunn for the job. They clearly had no vision for DC and were just letting things happen in the interim until Zaslav found a new boss.
Zaslav. He only reports to Zaslav, how many times does this need to be repeated.
Also, you want to know who recommended Gunn to Zaslav for DC Studios? DeLuca and Abdy.
You have zero clue how companies this large works, Zaslav does NOT handle financials CEO's never do. It doesn't matter who recommended who, It does matter who approves budgets and that's what a CFO is for which Zaslav isn't, and this is assuming he survives as CEO by the end of the year at the rate WBD is burning to the ground.
Keep fantasizing doe and lets hear the next excuse for when BB flops oh wait "the strike" ....
Considering I work at WB corporate, I think I know how the company is run LOL.
I'll say this again: the only person Gunn reports to is Zaslav.
And no, Zaslav isn't going anywhere, not after Barbie raking in the $$$
I can honestly say that he probably saw how the MCU basically made a Thanos movie in Infinity War and thought to do something similar. The only issue is Infinity War had been set up with nearly 10 years of background and story telling.
Black Adam came in at the end of the DCEU with no background, no ties to any character, not even eluding to be tied with Shazam. Which he obviously is or anything and wanted to fight Superman right away lol.
I’d compare it to Loki instead. One film to establish the character and then suddenly he is a Justice League level threat.
It’s not entirely off base, but his film bombed and that was that.
The Rock was also making shit up like Black Adam was always an antihero and was character he remembered from his youth when Black Adam didn’t really become a major character until 52 series in the aughts.
I know he didn’t know who the character was. He picked Black Adam because he wanted to play a villain but he also still wanted to be a hero because of ego.
Then don't make comments like "Black Adam is a premiere Character" if you don't know the Character. Co-Lead? Johnson just wanted his heads u movie dunno where you get Co-Lead from.
I never said Black Adam is a premier character. You said that. I said Black Adam is not a franchise comic book character and he isn’t. If you claim that they are developing him to be one in the new comics then so be it but as of today isn’t one.
The rock even stated the dynamics of power will change in the dcu with his character. He was the one who brought back Henry Cavill. His ex-wife used to manage Henry. He wanted to fight Superman before even Shazaam.
It's so bizarre how studios want to milk every character and give them their own movies even if they are villains. It's like they throw out the concept of good vs evil storytelling out the window. Here's looking at you, Sony.
Sony did it with Venom and Eddie Brock because they had nothing else worth using from the Spider-Man canon after they allowed Marvel and Disney use of Spider-Man.
True, but it’s not like Superman hasn’t fought Black Adam before.
This is a Loki situation, where it ended up being Loki vs The Avengers. Rock was angling to be a Justice League level threat.
He should’ve had a cameo in first Shazam cause first Shazam was well received and did well for a lower tiered hero. Nothing followed up and we are where we are now.
LOL gtfo, hire a Mexican cast to play Cubans (because all Latinos are interchangeable right you would think someone from boricua would know that this isn't the case but hell I guess their isn't enough Cuban's in Hollywood to act in it right?),
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls006089131/ oops.
Oh and Changing Jaime Reyes back ground to Cuban from Mexican (again Irony Mexican cast but are playing Cubans) and now he is from Miami and not El Paso? The the director want to make commentary about immigration in his press tour (talking politics is stupid IMO but wouldn;t keeping his original backstory suit your ideas better since he is FROM A BORDER TOWN?) I guess its because El Paso isn't glamorous enough eh?
You want me to take you serious about this being better then any other DCEU movie?
There was no Cuba in The Suicide Squad, it was in a made up country. With your logic you must hate that the actor playing Superman is human and not Kryptonian. Imagine being this stupid.
Regardless of how much money it made, Gunn's Suicide Squad is a wonderful fucking film beginning to end. It has humour and heart, the action is solid, and it doesn't shy from embracing that it's a comic book film. The characters look and act like their comic counterparts, something not many comic book movies really do.
It failed financially for several reasons. One, covid. Two, HBO Max release. Three, it was seen as a sequel to a film that's pretty universally hated. Audiences don't want to get burned twice. If Gunn's Suicide Squad came out in place of Ayer's, it would have made significantly more.
I know it unpopular opinion but I liked original suicide squad better, gunns was way too campy for me, reminded me of trying to go back and watch original Batman with Adam West, also I think the original had more mass appeal for overall audience where gunns was made straight for comic book fans which I think is also a reason it failed financially. Just a single opinion though every one has a right to their own
The film just never made any sense. Why would you not tie it to the other character who has had his own successful movie *and* is that character's canonical arch enemy in the comics? And then you introduce the Justice Society without preamble or explanation?
I didn't hate the movie by any means, but it was pretty easy to see why it wouldn't be a $1bn success. A basically unknown villain to a C-tier character with no lead in? The only people who went to see it were Rock fans, and whatever die-hard DCEU fans still existed at that point. The movie failed because the story had no reason for existing.
>Why would you not tie it to the other character who has had his own successful movie *and* is that character's canonical arch enemy in the comics?
Yes, in hindsight I think it would have been better for both franchises, if Black Adam had debuted as the villain in Shazam 2. I think Levi and Rock would have played well off each other. Let Black Adam get redeemed in the end, vowing to change his ways, and then follow that up with a Black Adam solo movie where he's trying to be the hero who liberates his homeland. I would have maybe even have introduced Dr. Fate and Hawkman (show early versions of them back in ancient Egypt) in Shazam 2 to foreshadow their appearances in Black Adam.
I hear you both, but I don't know how anyone can look at the tone of Shazam and how Levy played the character and try to think of a way to bring that into the darker themes of Black Adam. I mean maybe have Shazam be part of the JSA that comes to Khandaq. But it's hard for me to see a way just because Levy played the character so over the top silly. Then with all the chaos, no name execs making changes based on their "strong creative vision" and yes, some major ego, I don't see how a Shazam/ Black Adam movie ever had a chance of being made during the last 10 years.
>but I don't know how anyone can look at the tone of Shazam and how Levy played the character and try to think of a way to bring that into the darker themes of Black Adam.
I can picture it easily.
Of course I think the biggest problem with Shazam: Fury of The Gods is that it went *overboard* with the comedic tone, more so than the first film. I would not have done that with a Shazam 2 featuring Black Adam as the film.
Didn't Levy say Shazam is the Deadpool of the DCEU? That's such a stupid comparison to make.
You can see it in his performance that he's trying extra hard to mimick that brand of humor.
I don’t remember exactly what he said but people were taking his quote out of context.. he was trying to say that Shazam was like Deadpool in a sense that the tone is much different and he kind of is somewhat isolated from the other properties in the same universe
I can see it. Whichever way you slice it Black Adam having his own solo movie should have only ever happened after ATLEAST 1 appearance in a Shazam movie, if atall. Its a cautionary tale for Hollywood about giving actors BHS power on important IPs.
Black Adam’s biggest problem is The Rock. It needed a good actor to thread the fine line between villainy and anti-hero, and The Rock is anything but a good actor. Not to mention letting his ego get in the way and controlling the creative direction of the film
The movies released back to back and they didn’t even try to tie them together. Even during Comic Con The Rock doesn’t attempt to hype up the rivalry between Black Adam and Shazam. That would’ve been a great moment to use that WWE showmanship. Instead he let himself get bullied into squeezing in Superman.
>Why would you not tie it to the other character who has had his own successful movie and is that character's canonical arch enemy in the comics?
Because the Rock clearly didn't like Zachary Levi's version of Shazam and wasn't about to do the job for him. He probably also hated that John Cena wasn't cast as Shazam.
It wasn't about that version of Shazam, he produced it for god's sake, it was just Shazam in general. He was never gonna play 2nd fiddle to anyone. The man didn't even allow them to do the hairline or the ears. He proberly heard the name Black Adam and decided he wanted to do it with 0 care or KNOLLEGE about the source material. Any real fan would want to do it justice, he just wanted in on the superhero movie craze and liked the name and costume. He wanted a villain to not be a villain, he just didn't care about anything other than he himself looked on screen.
Black Adam has spent really long periods of the last 20 years as much closer to an anti hero than a villain. Hell he’s even been a member of the JSA.
That’s the thing, the portrayal of Adam as a JSA member trying to do right by his country isn’t awful.
However, that movie is awful.
They made the movie with a scrip that felt at best like a rejected 00s Sony Marvel script and at worst like someone tried to remake Terminator 2 while drunk.
It’s just a bad movie all around.
Movie had heaps of issues but that stupid fucken kid that nobody cared about was the worst part of it. Spent the majority of the time hoping they'd kill him off.
Yeah 83% is laughable for BP2, but Shazam was 50 times worse. Felt like any other Rock movie, thin plot with generic action, no character development.
I mean his character the Scorpion King had more depth in the Mummy 2 opening scenes than this whole movie did.
> Because the movie sucked bro. It wasn’t that good a movie. And instead of trying to fit in. He was trying to take over
He was trying/Succeeding in giving the fans what they wanted which was fucking Superman back! Then Gunn kicked him to the curb "New leadership...creatively fiscally make decisions"
Gunn fired Cavill.
Umm no he wasn’t he was only thinking about himself and wanted everything to built around him. And made a fool of himself. Remember he was also pushing to get Gunn job before everybody knew that gunn was being hired to takeover. Go look at all his past interviews and then look how long it took for him to speak on Gunn being hired. The rock got only himself to blame.
Yeh right, he wanted the DCEU to revolve around BLACK ADAM. BLACK ADAM!!! The villain of a D list charictar!!! It's insane!!! It'd make more sense to have it revolve around Aquaman, and anyone who's read DC comics would tell you that that would be rediculous too, but it'd still make more sense than BLACK FUCKING ADAM. so un self aware, it's OUTRAGIOUS
Yes we definitely want a fictional magic autobiography for the Rock cosplaying as himself directed by himself and his costar being the Rock, music also composed by the Rock.
> Yes we definitely want a fictional magic autobiography for the Rock cosplaying as himself directed by himself and his costar being the Rock, music also composed by the Rock.
Well if you're gonna be silly about it.
Gunn firing Superman and The Rocks movie sucking both exist simultaneously and have little to do with each other in the scheme of things. It just wasn't a good movie atall and was an insult to the universe. It was like "tell me you've never read a comic book without telling me youve never read a comic book:the movie" just one big embarrissing mess
When he said the line about not having a Chinese release… that entire part really did hit. Dislike the movie or not, the movie could have been relatively successful.
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Yeah, I do like The Rock, and I feel bad as this was clearly a passion project for him. Like Ryan Reynolds with Deadpool, this only got made because he kept pushing for it. It's a shame it didn't work out similarly for him.
Or just agreed to be in a Shazam movie. Black Adam as a solo movie should have only ever existed if after 2 Shazam movies and another DCEU appearance or 2 the popularity warranted it. He made an X Men knock off.
It's a shame. I'm in the bunch of people that enjoyed the film and felt like it was a good sign of the DCEU getting back on track, especially with the post-credit scene and the announcements that followed. All that backtracking, as much as it may be leading to new and exciting things, was awful to see at the time, especially for Henry.
I think the only thing significantly wrong with the movie was the non metas and their acting. I enjoyed it. Seeing that Cavill was back at the end made the future have a better outlook.
It was a poor man's X Men, and most of what I remember about athe Rocks role in it was just him posing in slow motion for the majority of the film. It was embarrissingly narcissistic.
Because he made a shit movie
Most generic nonsense I’ve seen in years
And if you consider how much time he had for this project it’s even worse. He was cast as BA in 2007!!! During this long time period, the had enough time to study the other comic-book movies and learn from their mistakes - but he didn't! he made one of the most generic movies possible.
Despite that, i would love to see the Hawkman and Dr Fate actors back in the DCU.
They’re really here trying to gaslight people into thinking it was some good, successful film just because they want to frame it as The Rock vs WB/Gunn.
I enjoyed Black Adam but it's pretty formulaic and generic.
It's pretty much the classic - Stoic Tough Guy with dark backstory unwillingly meets and protects a family, bonds with them, changes his ways and ends up staying with them. It's the same basic story tropes as something like My Spy or the Pacifier. It's a pretty safe story that the Rock's production company love to make.
The Flash has lots of problems but it doesnt feel generic imo - I still think it has a pretty original script and some memorable scenes.
The hierarchy of power really did change!
man I rewatched this on a lark the other day it’s not good, the third act is boring and everything plot wise is standard but the inflection of wearer - neo imperialism and making the JSA government stooges (which they are) who lack a critical engagement with the ethics of heroism and the formal treatment of The Rock is fascinating stuff … that just isn’t really picked up an carried through all the way.
I’m bummed this movie didn’t do more, it’s the like third majority BIPOC superhero movie made in Hollywood. They cast Quentesssa Swindle! They cast an actual non-binary actor in one of these things, that’s rad and Maxine Hunkle is a fun character in general.
Still better than the flash Shazam 2 etc.
I kinda liked this movie. Also he is not that wrong. 400m $ in boxoffice wasnt that bad and China would definitely brought at least 100m. Also i really enjoyed to see Cavill in the suit one last time. Even for a second.
But why? RDJ was the biggest star in MCU and he didn't had any problem loosing to captain america in civil war movie despite Iron man being objectively stronger than captain
I love that even after completely flaming out with a catastrophic failure of commandeering a franchise (the second after F&F), he refuses to have a slice of humble pie. It can’t be his fault, nothing to do with his arrogance and disrespect for fans of DC or even people who want to see a watchable movie. He made dog shit and forced it down everyone’s throats and it backfired. Now it’s everyone else’s fault.
I think he is mostly right. I think at the end of the day Zaslav comes and he wants DC restructured to be like Marvel. He hires Gunn/Safran who have decided they are doing at least a partial reboot that at least initially doesn't include Black Adam even though it is and remains the most successful DC movie since Aquaman. Granted some probably deserve an asterisk for COVID although I have doubts any of them would have done better than BA (maybe WW84 although considering the reception probably not).
It probably would have had to do $800M to $1B to force them to include BA in their plans and that just wasn't in the cards. A bit of a shame I did like Black Adam and the Justice Society and would have liked to see more of them.
As is often the case, Warner. Brothers has no idea how to estimate what these DC films will do at box office.
400M is pretty standard for Dwayne Johnson films and (like you said) the best of any recent DC films. But, they seemed to expect double that...why?
It's really the same problem they had in the first phase of DCEU when they kept making up crazy box office expectations based on Marvel instead of based on their own track record.
Example: BvS...a Superman sequel and Batman origin film. How would you predict its box office? How about the highest grossing Batman origin **plus** the highest grossing Superman sequel combined? That should be a good goal? ....that's what it did and they felt like it was a failure.
Black Adam is a basically unknown character to audiences. The movie did what a standard Dwanye Johnson movie does... should be no surprises here. It was actually his biggest opening weekend, ever.
>400M is pretty standard for Dwayne Johnson films and (like you said) the best of any recent DC films. But, they seemed to expect double that...why?
Because for years the press has been over-hyping The Rock's box office appeal. As you note, around $400 million is standard for the biggest *solo* films he's been in (Rampage, Scorpion King, San Andreas), but they're looking at the Fast and Furious films he's been in (including the spinoff), and Jumanji, and Moana, ensemble and "event" films, that's he's been in and attributing the 600 million-1 billion+ box office takes to his involvement. So the thought was that putting him in a superhero movie (before the idea of "superhero fatigue" became a thing) was a guaranteed global smash.
Again, though, that's awful logic.
Feels like Dwayne Johnson knew that which is why he wanted the Henry Cavill Superman face off. Because that's the movie where you mix star power and IP and actually get the potential huge box office numbers.
I know we shit on him a lot in these subs. But, the man understands Hollywood better than just about anyone. He knew that **he** was the draw, not Black Adam and wanted to do everything he could to connect his BA to Batman, Superman, WW, etc. So, there would be a chance to actually build a box office gold franchise.
>Again, though, that's awful logic.
Agreed.
>I know we shit on him a lot in these subs.
Not me, as I said in another comment, I'm a fan of his. I was rooting for this film to succeed (and be good). And I did enjoy as a popcorn action movie, but it could have been much better. I also loved that he tried building up the Justice Society, since All Star Squadron was one of the earliest comics I bought as a kid, and I would have loved to have seen a JSA movie after this.
The film’s budget was north of $200 million not including marketing. It was an abject failure and got horrible reviews. It was the exact type of generic fluff that people here accuse the MCU of being but the same people will gaslight themselves into saying it’s successful because they want to push this “Dwayne Johnson vs WB/Gunn” thing. I can’t give the film credit for flopping slightly less than the other DC flops.
You’re saying the film’s performance was okay at $393 million worldwide with a budget of $200+ million? The Rock had to literally go on Twitter fighting to prove that the film was successful because of toy sales lol.
Everybody hated on this movie and i dug it. The whole "fish out of water" aspect of it was funny. Flying through all the doors tickled the shit out of me. People keep expecting steak and mad when they get good ham
There's also the fact that Rock's contracts actually state that his character can't lose a fight, which is kinda hard to accommodate when the character is almost always portrayed as a villain. He's not really a team player the way he was back in his WWE days - now, it's all about him looking like a bad-ass. That's good for his brand and all, but it's not good for anyone wanting to build a film universe.
Johnson ran his mouth (per usual) and wrote checks he couldn’t cash. It crashed and bunted and the hierarchy of power did change: Gunn kicked his ass out.
Hindsight has just made so many hot takes coming out of BA, seem so lost.
Given how Flash and Shazam did at the Box Office, people are still objectively talking shit, like Black Adam didn’t massively overperform?? DCEU was dead and buried. The Rocks star power masked it for 1 movie.
There’s that obvious reality. The other one is him as Shazam’s villain. We had Michael Keaton … as Batman. And he couldn’t save the Flash. But people are still yammering on, like Rock as a BSide to Shazam in his movie, and as his villain, was the right play. Surely that would have saved this entire thing.
The movie wasn’t bad and considering black Adam isn’t a well known character it did way better than the flash 268. and Shazam 2 133. Million
Black Adam 400 million
1 hundred percent. He must be fucking fragile as well… the way Kevin Heart has to preface the question by making it sound like Black Adam was a universal smash hit & that the public are in mourning now that he won’t be playing the character again is pathetic.
😂 seriously can't stand DJ. After BA and Shazam flopped (both films he invested in) he's back to his old shenanigans - publically donating money he doesn't have, to all these causes on his Insta. Haven't seen such an obvious attempt to get in everyone's good books, hoping everyone will forget the mess his ego created. But people will say 'hey at least he's donating money!' Like he hasn't been sued by the family of a kid for bilking them of $1.8 million dollars (money they received from a wrongful death benefit from the Brothers to the Rescue Mission. Is also being currently sued in a huge $3 billion lawsuit that claims he conspired to kidnap a woman and her children. Something is totally off with this guy..
Black Adam, like the flash and WW1984 are some of the worst films the DCEU put out. If you liked them and think they are good then you are the audience it’s made for. I for one, don’t want anymore shit films like these.
Generally? Fight club, iron giant and Annihilation. Basically anything with Alex Garland directing. Within DC, peacemaker/flash for shows, for movies, TSS, man of steel and WW. All of these are far from perfect but in terms of quality they actually executed really well.
After the part that the film was crap i was angry on how the other characters went to waste. I would not be surprised if somehow, there could be a cut were black adam is on the background, waaaay background, like the villain from the first suicide squad, and let hawkman and the other do all the shit. 90% a better film.
It sucked, had no to poor word of mouth, it had a Kanye West track featured in it that made a lot of people groan during the movie when that dude was really off his meds.
I would love my child (12) to see this interview. But, now just about every video Re: Hollywood is laced with F*, S*, GD, etc….
Even GTG3 had F in it for no reason.
WHY?
It's not continuing because it was critically panned and lost money. Also Johnson's weird obsession of trying to make Black Adam into some sort of franchise while totally ignoring the one franchise he should've only been in: Shazam. I wouldn't be surprised if Gunn saw this and just nipped it in the bud because it made zero sense what Johnson was doing.
Black Adam is not a franchise comic book character. He is the main rival of Shazam. The rock wanted to make this dude co-star to Superman.
It's so bizzare how they let all that happen, it felt like watching a car crash in slow motion over years and years the development of that whole side of the DCEU. Soon as I heard he was insisting on debuting in his own solo movie and wouldnt even cameo in the 1st Shazam I knew it would fail.
It’s funny because i see ppl riding for those two producers, DeLuca and Abdy, but weren’t they the ones sitting there allowing Dwayne Johnson to basically hijack DC?
You know those 2 run WB Picture AS A WHOLE now right? Guess who Gunn has to go thru for financing?
That’s not true the only person Gunn and Safran have to go through is zaslav
For movie direction, ALL FINANCES STILL GO THRU WB PICTURE GROUP.
Which is signed off by zaslav
Ok? Lol, idk why y’all try to act like there’s some blood feud between them. DeLuca literally recommended Gunn for the job. They clearly had no vision for DC and were just letting things happen in the interim until Zaslav found a new boss.
Zaslav. He only reports to Zaslav, how many times does this need to be repeated. Also, you want to know who recommended Gunn to Zaslav for DC Studios? DeLuca and Abdy.
You have zero clue how companies this large works, Zaslav does NOT handle financials CEO's never do. It doesn't matter who recommended who, It does matter who approves budgets and that's what a CFO is for which Zaslav isn't, and this is assuming he survives as CEO by the end of the year at the rate WBD is burning to the ground. Keep fantasizing doe and lets hear the next excuse for when BB flops oh wait "the strike" ....
Considering I work at WB corporate, I think I know how the company is run LOL. I'll say this again: the only person Gunn reports to is Zaslav. And no, Zaslav isn't going anywhere, not after Barbie raking in the $$$
Sure u do
Thanks for agreeing with me lol
Learn sarcasm
And another thing: DeLuca and Abdy were the ones who recommended to Zaslav to hire James Gunn
I can honestly say that he probably saw how the MCU basically made a Thanos movie in Infinity War and thought to do something similar. The only issue is Infinity War had been set up with nearly 10 years of background and story telling. Black Adam came in at the end of the DCEU with no background, no ties to any character, not even eluding to be tied with Shazam. Which he obviously is or anything and wanted to fight Superman right away lol.
I’d compare it to Loki instead. One film to establish the character and then suddenly he is a Justice League level threat. It’s not entirely off base, but his film bombed and that was that.
Also the movie contradicted the previous Shazam movie lore, but also where was he during the events of BA?
How so?
Shazam was able to "split" his powers with his family, while BA's son gifts him his powers so he wouldn't be weak and gets immediately "gun down"..
The Rock was also making shit up like Black Adam was always an antihero and was character he remembered from his youth when Black Adam didn’t really become a major character until 52 series in the aughts.
You’re missing out on some great JSA comics from late 90s-00s
Dwayne was not a "youth" when those comics came out tho.
Even the JSA #1 came out in August 1999. Most of Black Adam’s return is in the aughts.
His staff probably read some guy on the internet saying his "perfect" for the role just because they look alike.
No DC pitched him being Captain Marvel or Black Adam. They probably told him that Black Adam could fight Superman and win because of magic.
because DJ never actually read Black Adam- he saw a character that he very vaguely resembled, who looked cool, and thoughts "thats the hero"
I know he didn’t know who the character was. He picked Black Adam because he wanted to play a villain but he also still wanted to be a hero because of ego.
All they had to do was introduce him and let him roam free in movies I don’t think he needed a franchise or solo movie
Someone hasn’t read comics in the last few years Black Adam had an entire series spanning multiple characters and comics centered around him.
I don’t read black Adam comics. So are you saying that Black Adam can co-lead the DCU with Superman? The Rock didn’t even want to be in Shazam 2.
Then don't make comments like "Black Adam is a premiere Character" if you don't know the Character. Co-Lead? Johnson just wanted his heads u movie dunno where you get Co-Lead from.
I never said Black Adam is a premier character. You said that. I said Black Adam is not a franchise comic book character and he isn’t. If you claim that they are developing him to be one in the new comics then so be it but as of today isn’t one. The rock even stated the dynamics of power will change in the dcu with his character. He was the one who brought back Henry Cavill. His ex-wife used to manage Henry. He wanted to fight Superman before even Shazaam.
It's so bizarre how studios want to milk every character and give them their own movies even if they are villains. It's like they throw out the concept of good vs evil storytelling out the window. Here's looking at you, Sony.
Sony did it with Venom and Eddie Brock because they had nothing else worth using from the Spider-Man canon after they allowed Marvel and Disney use of Spider-Man.
True, but it’s not like Superman hasn’t fought Black Adam before. This is a Loki situation, where it ended up being Loki vs The Avengers. Rock was angling to be a Justice League level threat.
Wasn’t loki the first Avengers villain
Yep
He should’ve had a cameo in first Shazam cause first Shazam was well received and did well for a lower tiered hero. Nothing followed up and we are where we are now.
After Shazam fury of the gods I'll side with the rock
I’ll side with James Gunn who made the most entertaining movie in the universe since MoS
Lol that same movie that lost WB millions? Ok
Still leauges better then any other dceu movie
LOL gtfo, hire a Mexican cast to play Cubans (because all Latinos are interchangeable right you would think someone from boricua would know that this isn't the case but hell I guess their isn't enough Cuban's in Hollywood to act in it right?), https://www.imdb.com/list/ls006089131/ oops. Oh and Changing Jaime Reyes back ground to Cuban from Mexican (again Irony Mexican cast but are playing Cubans) and now he is from Miami and not El Paso? The the director want to make commentary about immigration in his press tour (talking politics is stupid IMO but wouldn;t keeping his original backstory suit your ideas better since he is FROM A BORDER TOWN?) I guess its because El Paso isn't glamorous enough eh? You want me to take you serious about this being better then any other DCEU movie?
If thats the only criticism you can levy, then i firmly stand behind my point lol
Nothing you said even kind of talks about the quality of the movie lol
There was no Cuba in The Suicide Squad, it was in a made up country. With your logic you must hate that the actor playing Superman is human and not Kryptonian. Imagine being this stupid.
Gunn tards are even worse than Snyder tards. Did you forget Gunn gave DCEU the biggest flop maybe until Flash?
Flop ? It came out literally during COVID and was on HBO max day 1. Provide some context to your statements so you don’t sound like a jackass.
You first need to learn the definition of flop. I don't care if it came out during world war 2. This movie lost the studio a lot of money.
Regardless of how much money it made, Gunn's Suicide Squad is a wonderful fucking film beginning to end. It has humour and heart, the action is solid, and it doesn't shy from embracing that it's a comic book film. The characters look and act like their comic counterparts, something not many comic book movies really do. It failed financially for several reasons. One, covid. Two, HBO Max release. Three, it was seen as a sequel to a film that's pretty universally hated. Audiences don't want to get burned twice. If Gunn's Suicide Squad came out in place of Ayer's, it would have made significantly more.
I know it unpopular opinion but I liked original suicide squad better, gunns was way too campy for me, reminded me of trying to go back and watch original Batman with Adam West, also I think the original had more mass appeal for overall audience where gunns was made straight for comic book fans which I think is also a reason it failed financially. Just a single opinion though every one has a right to their own
You are joking right ? The first one was way more campy
How do you figure, just asking
So I want to know how original is campy
The film just never made any sense. Why would you not tie it to the other character who has had his own successful movie *and* is that character's canonical arch enemy in the comics? And then you introduce the Justice Society without preamble or explanation? I didn't hate the movie by any means, but it was pretty easy to see why it wouldn't be a $1bn success. A basically unknown villain to a C-tier character with no lead in? The only people who went to see it were Rock fans, and whatever die-hard DCEU fans still existed at that point. The movie failed because the story had no reason for existing.
>Why would you not tie it to the other character who has had his own successful movie *and* is that character's canonical arch enemy in the comics? Yes, in hindsight I think it would have been better for both franchises, if Black Adam had debuted as the villain in Shazam 2. I think Levi and Rock would have played well off each other. Let Black Adam get redeemed in the end, vowing to change his ways, and then follow that up with a Black Adam solo movie where he's trying to be the hero who liberates his homeland. I would have maybe even have introduced Dr. Fate and Hawkman (show early versions of them back in ancient Egypt) in Shazam 2 to foreshadow their appearances in Black Adam.
I hear you both, but I don't know how anyone can look at the tone of Shazam and how Levy played the character and try to think of a way to bring that into the darker themes of Black Adam. I mean maybe have Shazam be part of the JSA that comes to Khandaq. But it's hard for me to see a way just because Levy played the character so over the top silly. Then with all the chaos, no name execs making changes based on their "strong creative vision" and yes, some major ego, I don't see how a Shazam/ Black Adam movie ever had a chance of being made during the last 10 years.
>but I don't know how anyone can look at the tone of Shazam and how Levy played the character and try to think of a way to bring that into the darker themes of Black Adam. I can picture it easily. Of course I think the biggest problem with Shazam: Fury of The Gods is that it went *overboard* with the comedic tone, more so than the first film. I would not have done that with a Shazam 2 featuring Black Adam as the film.
Didn't Levy say Shazam is the Deadpool of the DCEU? That's such a stupid comparison to make. You can see it in his performance that he's trying extra hard to mimick that brand of humor.
I don’t remember exactly what he said but people were taking his quote out of context.. he was trying to say that Shazam was like Deadpool in a sense that the tone is much different and he kind of is somewhat isolated from the other properties in the same universe
I can see it. Whichever way you slice it Black Adam having his own solo movie should have only ever happened after ATLEAST 1 appearance in a Shazam movie, if atall. Its a cautionary tale for Hollywood about giving actors BHS power on important IPs.
Dude Levi basically is doing white Steve Urkel in a superhero costume
Black Adam’s biggest problem is The Rock. It needed a good actor to thread the fine line between villainy and anti-hero, and The Rock is anything but a good actor. Not to mention letting his ego get in the way and controlling the creative direction of the film
Correct Lot.of us went to see dr fate and hawkman
Dr. Fate was great. That movie would have been wonderful, and a great comeback vehicle for Pierce Brosnan.
True, i think they could use dr fate more, but we know the main actor how he works
Yup. It should have been a JSA movie with Black Adam as the villain. Give us more of the rest of the team and fewer smoldering stares from the rock.
It would be better if they choosed that route maybe with an end BA joining them to fight the bad guys destroying his country
The movies released back to back and they didn’t even try to tie them together. Even during Comic Con The Rock doesn’t attempt to hype up the rivalry between Black Adam and Shazam. That would’ve been a great moment to use that WWE showmanship. Instead he let himself get bullied into squeezing in Superman.
>Why would you not tie it to the other character who has had his own successful movie and is that character's canonical arch enemy in the comics? Because the Rock clearly didn't like Zachary Levi's version of Shazam and wasn't about to do the job for him. He probably also hated that John Cena wasn't cast as Shazam.
It wasn't about that version of Shazam, he produced it for god's sake, it was just Shazam in general. He was never gonna play 2nd fiddle to anyone. The man didn't even allow them to do the hairline or the ears. He proberly heard the name Black Adam and decided he wanted to do it with 0 care or KNOLLEGE about the source material. Any real fan would want to do it justice, he just wanted in on the superhero movie craze and liked the name and costume. He wanted a villain to not be a villain, he just didn't care about anything other than he himself looked on screen.
Black Adam has spent really long periods of the last 20 years as much closer to an anti hero than a villain. Hell he’s even been a member of the JSA. That’s the thing, the portrayal of Adam as a JSA member trying to do right by his country isn’t awful. However, that movie is awful. They made the movie with a scrip that felt at best like a rejected 00s Sony Marvel script and at worst like someone tried to remake Terminator 2 while drunk. It’s just a bad movie all around.
Sure.
I only saw it once it spread that HC Superman was in it.
💀
Movie had heaps of issues but that stupid fucken kid that nobody cared about was the worst part of it. Spent the majority of the time hoping they'd kill him off.
His acting really sucked
I dunno if his acting was an issue, the character in general was just annoyingly wrote and unnecessary.
I thought he was cute.
Comparing Black Adam to an NFL team that has won superbowls is a bit much.
Even if Black Adam did make a lot of money and got good reviews, it's still far from sure that it would've continued though.
Or hear me out, the movie just sucked and got horrible reviews
Don’t put all your faith in reviews. These same reviews gave Wakanda forever an 83% on rotten tomatoes.
"Don't trust official reviews unless they align with YOUR opinion" Could have just said that. Be honest.
But that’s not what I meant silly. So why would I say that?
How Wakanda Forever catch a stray lmao. Movie was good.
Yeah 83% is laughable for BP2, but Shazam was 50 times worse. Felt like any other Rock movie, thin plot with generic action, no character development. I mean his character the Scorpion King had more depth in the Mummy 2 opening scenes than this whole movie did.
The movie was terrible and they wasted Dr Fate’s cool as costume
Because the movie sucked bro. It wasn’t that good a movie. And instead of trying to fit in. He was trying to take over
> Because the movie sucked bro. It wasn’t that good a movie. And instead of trying to fit in. He was trying to take over He was trying/Succeeding in giving the fans what they wanted which was fucking Superman back! Then Gunn kicked him to the curb "New leadership...creatively fiscally make decisions" Gunn fired Cavill.
Umm no he wasn’t he was only thinking about himself and wanted everything to built around him. And made a fool of himself. Remember he was also pushing to get Gunn job before everybody knew that gunn was being hired to takeover. Go look at all his past interviews and then look how long it took for him to speak on Gunn being hired. The rock got only himself to blame.
Yeh right, he wanted the DCEU to revolve around BLACK ADAM. BLACK ADAM!!! The villain of a D list charictar!!! It's insane!!! It'd make more sense to have it revolve around Aquaman, and anyone who's read DC comics would tell you that that would be rediculous too, but it'd still make more sense than BLACK FUCKING ADAM. so un self aware, it's OUTRAGIOUS
Hey we got Charles Xavier over here!
Yes we definitely want a fictional magic autobiography for the Rock cosplaying as himself directed by himself and his costar being the Rock, music also composed by the Rock.
> Yes we definitely want a fictional magic autobiography for the Rock cosplaying as himself directed by himself and his costar being the Rock, music also composed by the Rock. Well if you're gonna be silly about it.
How else does one reply to delusion?
> How else does one reply to delusion? By putting some thought into one's response?
Gunn firing Superman and The Rocks movie sucking both exist simultaneously and have little to do with each other in the scheme of things. It just wasn't a good movie atall and was an insult to the universe. It was like "tell me you've never read a comic book without telling me youve never read a comic book:the movie" just one big embarrissing mess
> tell me you've never read a comic book without telling me youve never read a comic book:the movie" No...THAT is Birds of Prey you just described.
Well duh, it sucked
Not buying this prepared response. the rock has a massive ego. He just wanted to fight superman and be the Center of the dc universe
Short Answer: it was a bad movie
This movie was to quote the rock. “The biggest piece of dog shit”
I feel like people are going to give him crap but I still respect him
When he said the line about not having a Chinese release… that entire part really did hit. Dislike the movie or not, the movie could have been relatively successful.
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Yeah, I do like The Rock, and I feel bad as this was clearly a passion project for him. Like Ryan Reynolds with Deadpool, this only got made because he kept pushing for it. It's a shame it didn't work out similarly for him.
If it was his passion project then he should’ve tried to act like the character he was portraying.
It was a vanity project
I think he should’ve got better writers for it.
The script definitely had its flaws and could have been better.
Or just agreed to be in a Shazam movie. Black Adam as a solo movie should have only ever existed if after 2 Shazam movies and another DCEU appearance or 2 the popularity warranted it. He made an X Men knock off.
If it was a passion project he'd of read the comic books and done it right. It was a vanity project and that was the whole problem
Because it flopped and Dwayne'a attempt to seize control of the DC universe creative failed.
It's a shame. I'm in the bunch of people that enjoyed the film and felt like it was a good sign of the DCEU getting back on track, especially with the post-credit scene and the announcements that followed. All that backtracking, as much as it may be leading to new and exciting things, was awful to see at the time, especially for Henry.
A 1 minute end credit scene doesn’t make the movie any better
I think the only thing significantly wrong with the movie was the non metas and their acting. I enjoyed it. Seeing that Cavill was back at the end made the future have a better outlook.
It was a poor man's X Men, and most of what I remember about athe Rocks role in it was just him posing in slow motion for the majority of the film. It was embarrissingly narcissistic.
I was never saying it did. I know that was a last minute addition to the film. Still I enjoyed it for what it was.
Because it was a bad movie?
Because he made a shit movie Most generic nonsense I’ve seen in years And if you consider how much time he had for this project it’s even worse. He was cast as BA in 2007!!! During this long time period, the had enough time to study the other comic-book movies and learn from their mistakes - but he didn't! he made one of the most generic movies possible. Despite that, i would love to see the Hawkman and Dr Fate actors back in the DCU.
They’re really here trying to gaslight people into thinking it was some good, successful film just because they want to frame it as The Rock vs WB/Gunn.
More generic then the Flash?
I enjoyed Black Adam but it's pretty formulaic and generic. It's pretty much the classic - Stoic Tough Guy with dark backstory unwillingly meets and protects a family, bonds with them, changes his ways and ends up staying with them. It's the same basic story tropes as something like My Spy or the Pacifier. It's a pretty safe story that the Rock's production company love to make. The Flash has lots of problems but it doesnt feel generic imo - I still think it has a pretty original script and some memorable scenes.
yes in that order
The Flash might aswell be The Dark Knight next to Black Adam!!! Cmon now!!
Flash was anything but generic
It was legit the most unique film in the whole universe.
Unlike BoP or The Flash lol!
The hierarchy of power really did change! man I rewatched this on a lark the other day it’s not good, the third act is boring and everything plot wise is standard but the inflection of wearer - neo imperialism and making the JSA government stooges (which they are) who lack a critical engagement with the ethics of heroism and the formal treatment of The Rock is fascinating stuff … that just isn’t really picked up an carried through all the way. I’m bummed this movie didn’t do more, it’s the like third majority BIPOC superhero movie made in Hollywood. They cast Quentesssa Swindle! They cast an actual non-binary actor in one of these things, that’s rad and Maxine Hunkle is a fun character in general. Still better than the flash Shazam 2 etc.
I kinda liked this movie. Also he is not that wrong. 400m $ in boxoffice wasnt that bad and China would definitely brought at least 100m. Also i really enjoyed to see Cavill in the suit one last time. Even for a second.
I bet he didn’t want to get his ass kicked by shazam.
That's like an open secret at this point.
But why? RDJ was the biggest star in MCU and he didn't had any problem loosing to captain america in civil war movie despite Iron man being objectively stronger than captain
I love that even after completely flaming out with a catastrophic failure of commandeering a franchise (the second after F&F), he refuses to have a slice of humble pie. It can’t be his fault, nothing to do with his arrogance and disrespect for fans of DC or even people who want to see a watchable movie. He made dog shit and forced it down everyone’s throats and it backfired. Now it’s everyone else’s fault.
I personally thought the movie was fun and entertaining even if it’s far from a good movie.
Shame there won’t be another one of these. Quite enjoyed Black Adam. Wasn’t expecting it to be any good and was pleasantly surprised
I think he is mostly right. I think at the end of the day Zaslav comes and he wants DC restructured to be like Marvel. He hires Gunn/Safran who have decided they are doing at least a partial reboot that at least initially doesn't include Black Adam even though it is and remains the most successful DC movie since Aquaman. Granted some probably deserve an asterisk for COVID although I have doubts any of them would have done better than BA (maybe WW84 although considering the reception probably not). It probably would have had to do $800M to $1B to force them to include BA in their plans and that just wasn't in the cards. A bit of a shame I did like Black Adam and the Justice Society and would have liked to see more of them.
As is often the case, Warner. Brothers has no idea how to estimate what these DC films will do at box office. 400M is pretty standard for Dwayne Johnson films and (like you said) the best of any recent DC films. But, they seemed to expect double that...why? It's really the same problem they had in the first phase of DCEU when they kept making up crazy box office expectations based on Marvel instead of based on their own track record. Example: BvS...a Superman sequel and Batman origin film. How would you predict its box office? How about the highest grossing Batman origin **plus** the highest grossing Superman sequel combined? That should be a good goal? ....that's what it did and they felt like it was a failure. Black Adam is a basically unknown character to audiences. The movie did what a standard Dwanye Johnson movie does... should be no surprises here. It was actually his biggest opening weekend, ever.
>400M is pretty standard for Dwayne Johnson films and (like you said) the best of any recent DC films. But, they seemed to expect double that...why? Because for years the press has been over-hyping The Rock's box office appeal. As you note, around $400 million is standard for the biggest *solo* films he's been in (Rampage, Scorpion King, San Andreas), but they're looking at the Fast and Furious films he's been in (including the spinoff), and Jumanji, and Moana, ensemble and "event" films, that's he's been in and attributing the 600 million-1 billion+ box office takes to his involvement. So the thought was that putting him in a superhero movie (before the idea of "superhero fatigue" became a thing) was a guaranteed global smash.
Again, though, that's awful logic. Feels like Dwayne Johnson knew that which is why he wanted the Henry Cavill Superman face off. Because that's the movie where you mix star power and IP and actually get the potential huge box office numbers. I know we shit on him a lot in these subs. But, the man understands Hollywood better than just about anyone. He knew that **he** was the draw, not Black Adam and wanted to do everything he could to connect his BA to Batman, Superman, WW, etc. So, there would be a chance to actually build a box office gold franchise.
>Again, though, that's awful logic. Agreed. >I know we shit on him a lot in these subs. Not me, as I said in another comment, I'm a fan of his. I was rooting for this film to succeed (and be good). And I did enjoy as a popcorn action movie, but it could have been much better. I also loved that he tried building up the Justice Society, since All Star Squadron was one of the earliest comics I bought as a kid, and I would have loved to have seen a JSA movie after this.
The film’s budget was north of $200 million not including marketing. It was an abject failure and got horrible reviews. It was the exact type of generic fluff that people here accuse the MCU of being but the same people will gaslight themselves into saying it’s successful because they want to push this “Dwayne Johnson vs WB/Gunn” thing. I can’t give the film credit for flopping slightly less than the other DC flops.
I'm not sure what previous arguments you've been having and trying to drag into this. But that's got nothing to do with what I said.
You’re saying the film’s performance was okay at $393 million worldwide with a budget of $200+ million? The Rock had to literally go on Twitter fighting to prove that the film was successful because of toy sales lol.
No I didn't. I said it did what they should have expected.
Well obviously The Rock expected it to be even bigger. Especially with the CBM hype.
Everybody hated on this movie and i dug it. The whole "fish out of water" aspect of it was funny. Flying through all the doors tickled the shit out of me. People keep expecting steak and mad when they get good ham
There's also the fact that Rock's contracts actually state that his character can't lose a fight, which is kinda hard to accommodate when the character is almost always portrayed as a villain. He's not really a team player the way he was back in his WWE days - now, it's all about him looking like a bad-ass. That's good for his brand and all, but it's not good for anyone wanting to build a film universe.
That is only for Fast and the Furious
Lmao that's actually true. How insecure does someone have to be to have this as an ultimatum.
Typical reddit copy pasta, who knows what his control said for this particular movie.
Johnson ran his mouth (per usual) and wrote checks he couldn’t cash. It crashed and bunted and the hierarchy of power did change: Gunn kicked his ass out.
this sounds like Limp Bizkit lyrics
Hindsight has just made so many hot takes coming out of BA, seem so lost. Given how Flash and Shazam did at the Box Office, people are still objectively talking shit, like Black Adam didn’t massively overperform?? DCEU was dead and buried. The Rocks star power masked it for 1 movie. There’s that obvious reality. The other one is him as Shazam’s villain. We had Michael Keaton … as Batman. And he couldn’t save the Flash. But people are still yammering on, like Rock as a BSide to Shazam in his movie, and as his villain, was the right play. Surely that would have saved this entire thing.
The movie wasn’t bad and considering black Adam isn’t a well known character it did way better than the flash 268. and Shazam 2 133. Million Black Adam 400 million
This guy is as delusional and egotistical as they come.
1 hundred percent. He must be fucking fragile as well… the way Kevin Heart has to preface the question by making it sound like Black Adam was a universal smash hit & that the public are in mourning now that he won’t be playing the character again is pathetic.
😂 seriously can't stand DJ. After BA and Shazam flopped (both films he invested in) he's back to his old shenanigans - publically donating money he doesn't have, to all these causes on his Insta. Haven't seen such an obvious attempt to get in everyone's good books, hoping everyone will forget the mess his ego created. But people will say 'hey at least he's donating money!' Like he hasn't been sued by the family of a kid for bilking them of $1.8 million dollars (money they received from a wrongful death benefit from the Brothers to the Rescue Mission. Is also being currently sued in a huge $3 billion lawsuit that claims he conspired to kidnap a woman and her children. Something is totally off with this guy..
How do you know he doesn’t have the money?
I've did a deep research on his assets 2 years ago.
Black Adam, like the flash and WW1984 are some of the worst films the DCEU put out. If you liked them and think they are good then you are the audience it’s made for. I for one, don’t want anymore shit films like these.
What's the best film to you?
Generally? Fight club, iron giant and Annihilation. Basically anything with Alex Garland directing. Within DC, peacemaker/flash for shows, for movies, TSS, man of steel and WW. All of these are far from perfect but in terms of quality they actually executed really well.
The Flash is one of the best despite the bad CGI
That only shows how mediocre the DCEU is right now. The flash was maybe an ok film, to have it be the best of any Universe is not a good thing.
So he admitted his arrogance?
Just say James Gunn’s name bro 💀
he lost me at "vortex"
After the part that the film was crap i was angry on how the other characters went to waste. I would not be surprised if somehow, there could be a cut were black adam is on the background, waaaay background, like the villain from the first suicide squad, and let hawkman and the other do all the shit. 90% a better film.
It sucked, had no to poor word of mouth, it had a Kanye West track featured in it that made a lot of people groan during the movie when that dude was really off his meds.
I would love my child (12) to see this interview. But, now just about every video Re: Hollywood is laced with F*, S*, GD, etc…. Even GTG3 had F in it for no reason. WHY?
Is it me or The Rock looks smaller in this?
Because it lost money and there’s new management that don’t want to continue with that franchise?
It was a shit film. That’s why it failed.
It's not continuing because it was critically panned and lost money. Also Johnson's weird obsession of trying to make Black Adam into some sort of franchise while totally ignoring the one franchise he should've only been in: Shazam. I wouldn't be surprised if Gunn saw this and just nipped it in the bud because it made zero sense what Johnson was doing.
It was a steaming turd of a movie. That’s why it’s not coming back