Dwayne Johnson refers to Black Adam as a ruthless and charming anti-hero

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

What we know about the announced SHAZAM! movie is that Darren Lemke is writing it and Dwayne Johnson is playing Black Adam. Beyond that, SHAZAM! is a mystery. We can assume Warner Bros is being serious that SHAZAM! is not a part of their DC Cinematic Universe since they have elected to released the movie under the New Line Cinema banner, but a lot can change over the next four years. For instance, which version of Black Adam will we be seeing? If Dwayne Johnson is to be believed, it will likely be the darker one we have seen in the New 52 line of DC comics.

Answer questions via his Twitter feed, Johnson described what he plans for his approach to playing Black Adam.

The anti-hero approach makes it sound like they want to develop Black Adam enough that he could potentially headline his own franchise. I mean, casting Dwayne Johnson as the “villain” is going to overshadow whichever actor they select to play Shazam, and Billy Batson for that matter. The movie is titled SHAZAM! so I can only assume they will be making more casting announcements over the next couple of years. That is unless they are just referring to the power of Shazam and we could just be getting a Black Adam movie.

There are a million different ways this could turn out but I am just not convinced they are paying for Dwayne Johnson‘s acting without putting him front and center in the movie. Hopefully we find out more soon, but with the release date set for April 5, 2019, I wouldn’t hold my breath.