The Rock Refuses To Bow To Anyone In The New ‘Black Adam’ Trailer

No one ever envisioned Black Adam arriving at a dicey time for the DC/Warner Bros. camp, which is distributing The Rock’s (New Line Cinema) entry into the (live-action) superpowers realm. Let’s just say that things are strange over at Warner Bros. Discovery these days, and very few of their comic book adaptations (Harley Quinn and the Joker sequel, which is still two years away, among them) are receiving good news these days. And Black Adam is now destined to be a proving ground, which is, again, unanticipated because it’s been over six years since Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson broke the news that he’d be portraying the DCEU’s Black Adam.

According to the above trailer, Black Adam (who was once Egypt’s greatest champion) has woken up from a 5,000-year nap after being “born from rage.” And as you can see, The Rock is pissed off as Black Adam, who never claimed to be a hero. Viola Davis returns as Amanda Waller from those Suicide Squad movies. And Pierce Brosnan appears as Doctor Fate, all while Black Adam wants nothing to do with any of this. Can this save the DCEU? We’ll find out this fall.

This movie’s under a lot of pressure for what was essentially a big-budgeted passion project for the star who’s a self-admitted “fan boy” of the character, who’s been (at least in the comics) both a supervillain and an antihero. This surely looks like a far cry from Shazam!, that lighthearted predecessor starring Zachary Levi, so it’s not too surprising that The Rock wanted Black Adam to be totally left out of the movie about a kid in a superhero’s bod. And thus far, we’ve seen a grim teaser and a trailer where The Rock catches a rocket like it ain’t no thing. From the movie’s synopsis:

From New Line Cinema, Dwayne Johnson stars in the action adventure “Black Adam.” The first-ever feature film to explore the story of the DC Super Hero comes to the big screen under the direction of Jaume Collet-Serra (“Jungle Cruise”). Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the ancient gods—and imprisoned just as quickly—Black Adam (Johnson) is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.

Black Adam will try hard to save DC Comics movies on October 21, 2022. Enjoy this very serious poster, too.