The Rock's long-awaited DC Comics film Black Adam officially arrives in theaters with its first screenings this Thursday evening.
It has been a long road with The Rock first announced as taking on the mantle of the DC anti-hero way back in September 2014, when the original plan was to introduce him as the villain in the Shazam! film series. Johnson lobbied for Black Adam to be introduced in his own film, allowing for two separate franchises to be launched instead.
Debuting in 1945, Black Adam is an ancient Egyptian predecessor of DC Comics' Shazam. Shazam, he utters a magic word in order to be transformed by magical lightning into his super-powered form, but became corrupted after receiving his powers. In recent years, he has also been the ruler of the fictional country Kahdaq. There were allusions made to him, but not by name, in DC's feature film adaptation of Shazam! several years ago.
Internally, the hope within Warner Bros. Discovery is that the film will help endow the DC Cinematic Universe with some new momentum as the new management of WBD charts a path forward.
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