Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been teasing—and teasing, and teasing—his Black Adam movie for years. And now there’s finally a trailer for it! A trailer that is a Cliff’s Notes version of the character’s origin story but otherwise gives little sense of what Black Adam is about. Other than how its character is indestructible, anyway.
The short version of Black Adam’s backstory, per the trailer, is that he was a slave and then he was reborn “a god.” This seems like maybe a bit of egotistical exaggeration, but he can certainly fly, and not get hurt, and catch rockets with his bare and massive hands. He’s not the only superhero in town; the movie also fits in Justice Society of America members Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), and Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan). The JSA believes heroes don’t kill people. Black Adam has a slightly different take.
Black Adam is directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Johnson’s Jungle Cruise director), who seems to be working with the Zack Snyder DC playbook: everything is brown. Collet-Serra told Entertainment Weekly, “When I started reading about Black Adam, I became really interested in how unconventional of a character he is. … Is he a hero? Is he a villain? Is he an antihero? He has such a unique story, and he goes well with my style and view of the world in general. In a world where not everything is black or white, you need a superhero like him to operate in the gray area, who has his own moral code.”
His moral code apparently involves flinging dudes into the sky—and making decisions about what kind of superpowered god-man he wants to be. Black Adam is in theaters October 21st.
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Black Adam had a bit to omuch of The Rock in him for my taste, but Brosnan makes an amazing, classic-style Kent Nelson/Dr. Fate in the trailer!
I’m really curious to see where they put Black Adam’s homeland. Will it be the Kahndaq of the comics? Or a real, historical country?
Notably, this is using the New52 (Earth-Prime) version of his origin (as a slave).
In previous continuities, he was an Egyptian prince, often specifically a son of Rameses II (which would also make him the half-brother of Prince Khufu, the first Hawkman).
I’ll give the trailer this, it definitely gets across the fact that Black Adam can be both great and very, very bad news indeed – I wonder if they’ll have the nerve to build Black Adam up as a genuine, though frequently sympathetic, villain for a clash with the Champions of Shazam or whether they’ll do their best to avoid bringing this Superhuman with a God complex into collision with superheroes likely to make him look MUCH nastier by contrast?
Also, I am deeply delighted to get some more JSA action (Even if I have the nasty suspicion they’re going to get severely deconstructed by Black Adam); I wonder if there will be any synchronicity with the STARGIRL television series?
… Also, I’m quietly confident that somewhere in the multiverse there exists an Earth where Mr Dwayne Johnson played Captain Marvel (Billy Batson) opposite Mr Mark Strong as Black Adam and I would have loved to see that match-up!
I did not read DC comics so I am unfamiliar with Black Adam. And I do not recall his character being on any of the various Justice League cartoons that have been on TV. Based on what I see in the trailer, Black Adam strikes me as the Stone Cold Stevve Austin of the DC Comic World. (Yes. I know that the Dwayne Johnson used to be a pro wrestler and had many matches with Steve Austin.)
@vinsentient. I agree. Pierce Brosnan appears to make an outstanding Dr. Fate. Dr. Fate is such an underated DC character. (I am familiar with Dr. Fate as he appeared on some Justice League cartoon episodes over the years.)
I’m looking forward to this one for Hawkman and Dr. Fate, two of my favorite characters when I was reading comics regularly.
Black Adam… eh. A morally gray character in a molded gray rubber suit. Reminds me of early Shazam clips where some people said his costume looked bad. Before the CGI postprocessing, his cape did look like he took a thin curtain off a window or grabbed a tablecloth. But it looked ok in the film.
Here the suit looks exactly as rubbery and washed out as the costume department tours they released prior.