When Dwayne Johnson revealed that he was working with DC Comics and Warner Bros on a movie role based in their superhero universe, the action star set the Internet ablaze with theories and dream casting scenarios. Johnson did everything he could to avoid specifically naming the hero he was working on. Hell, he never even concretely said it was a hero and not a villain. All we know is that Dwayne Johnson and DC are joining forces for a mysterious project that may or may not connect to BATMAN VS SUPERMAN or JUSTICE LEAGUE.
With the trailer for HERCULES dropping today, Johnson is in the forefront of the news and is once again being asked about whether his DC role could be that of Jon Stewart, aka Green Lantern. Comic Book Resources asked the man once known as The Rock and here was his answer:
“So, you know, there’s been mutual interest with myself and DC for many years to find the right character. I, like everyone here in the room, love superheroes. So there’s been mutual interest with us for years, and we’ve been having ongoing discussions, myself and DC, for years about the right character, what the right character would be. That’s another thing, too: It had to be right.”
So, from the sounds of that, it could be a superhero like Green Lantern or possibly Lobo which we knew was in development with Johnson until recently. Maybe he can give us a better hint with the criteria he set for joining up with DC.
“The first quality we were looking for was that he had to be extremely complex and have a lot going on. What that does for me as an actor and the studio is it gives us space that we can explore; his complexities. The other quality was that he had to – the character we were looking for had to be well-known but never brought to life. Then what that does again as an actor, it gives me a little bit of space, and we talked about personality. It just gives me a chance to put an imprint into his personality, with the set of tools that I could bring to the table and put a very unique twist on his personality, but still pay homage to who he is. The third thing – and most important – is he had to be a badass motherfucker, OK, and on a Superman level of power, where [he] could throw down. In those three qualities, I’m happy we’ve found that character.”
The phrase “throwing down with Superman” is interesting as that could mean this character is actually a villain or someone who confronts Superman. Based on that, it could still be Green Lantern or Lobo or even a villain like Darkseid. If it were Darkseid, that would be definitely playing against type for the actor who has become synonymous with heroes. He did play a bad guy as The Rock during his wrestling days.
My theory is still that Dwayne Johnson is looking to play Shazam or Black Adam. Or, maybe both in a dual role situation. I think Johnson’s physique and comic timing would play perfectly as Shazam while his intensity would be great as Black Adam. Either way, I am just hoping we find out soon who he will be playing.
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