People love The Rock, and they love superhero movies, so a crossover of the two was big news. Since then, he’s been talking up the role and the movie, recently taking to Empire to discuss the movie and where it fits.
GamesRadar has the relevant bits, taken from a larger interview about his upcoming adaptation of a Bill Hicks routine, San Andreas:
“I think Black Adam is going to grow into becoming an anti-hero… It’s all written within the spirit of respecting and paying homage to the comics. As we know, Black Adam started out as a slave. When he’s given the powers, he utilized them. Then in the wake of his powers, tragedy strikes, which turns his sentiment and tone in terms of psychology… One day you will see Black Adam go at it with Superman or Batman or any of the DC characters. But that said, there’s a great independence to Black Adam from the DC world, allowing us to inject, not only viciousness, but also winking humor.”
It sounds quite a bit like Shazam! is going to be at least a bit more lighthearted than, say, Man of Steel. Really, Grant Morrison created a great blueprint for updating the character that keeps the upbeat tone while trimming away the corniness, and it’d be good to see them stick to that. Of course, this is still a while away. Shazam! won’t arrive until 2019.
