Heading into this weekend’s release of Black Adam, a lot of the talk has revolved around Dwayne Johnson stepping in to single-handedly save the DCEU, which comes with the territory when you’re one of the biggest, most popular, highest-paid, and influential stars in the industry stepping into a franchise that even its staunchest fans will admit is in need of revitalization.
While all of that still stands to be true depending on how the movie performs at the box office – with the leading man and producer already teasing various sequels, spinoffs, showdowns, and crossovers to come – the first wave of reviews to the long-gestating debut of the Man in Black haven’t been particularly encouraging.
In fact, Black Adam is already ranked as the lowest-rated solo blockbuster in DCEU history on Rotten Tomatoes, but there is admittedly a caveat. At the time of writing, Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra’s latest holds an unspectacular 54 percent score, which puts it just two points behind Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, and four below Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984.
The caveat we mentioned is that David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Joss Whedon’s theatrical cut of Justice League are all underneath Black Adam on 26, 29, and 39 percent – but given that the trio comprises of two team-up flicks and a “versus” joint, The Rock’s 15 year-passion project remains bottom of the pile when it comes to a solitary hero taking center stage.
Of course, Black Adam could rise or fall on the aggregation site over the coming days, so this is something well worth keeping an eye on.