Haters might be hating but Dwayne Johnson is laughing all the way to the bank. His entry into the DC Extended Universe, Black Adam, smashed through the box office like Johnson’s mystically powered antihero smashes through walls, earning $7.6 million in previews at 3,500 locations across the country.
That’s a new personal high for Johnson, easily one of the world’s biggest and most marketable action stars. The new mark beats out his prior preview performances, edging out Fast and Furious 6 ($7.5 million), Hobbs and Shaw ($5.8 million), Jumanji: The Next Level ($4.7 million), San Andreas ($3.1 million), and Rampage ($2.4 million). The high take is a great sign for the latest DCEU vehicle and indicates the nascent franchise may just have some super-powered legs despite a somewhat tepid critical reception.
The newest DC tentpole, which follows Johnson’s title character, also known as Teth-Adam, as he awakens after millennia of imprisonment in a rocky tomb, has received less than stellar reviews from most critics but as it goes into wide release audience reactions have been fair to enthusiastic, pumping the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes audience response up to a respectable 88 percent.
The film seems to be on track to bring in a tidy $60 million for its first weekend. Definitely a bit lower than the originally projected $70 million but Black Adam, a DC tentpole with all the requisite bells, whistles, and not-so-secret cameos of an A-list superhero film stands a good chance of defying its harsh critics for this weekend if not for its entire run.
Black Adam is currently in theaters. You can read We Got This Covered’s review of the movie here.
