The prospect of Dwayne Johnson making his debut in the superhero genre is more than enough to sell the masses on Black Adam, never mind the fact the star and producer has poured his heart and soul into the project having remained attached to the title role for the better part of fifteen years.
The sizzle reel that premiered at DC FanDome set the tone nicely, making it clear that none of the major creative players were kidding when they teased that Teth-Adam’s live-action debut would establish him as being markedly different to the cookie-cutter good guys that largely characterize the comic book genre.
In a new interview with Variety at the premiere of Netflix’s Red Notice, producer Hiram Garcia revealed that he’d seen director Jaume Collet-Serra’s cut of the movie, and fans are going to be blown away by what’s in store.
“We just saw the director’s cut. I’m so excited. Look, you get into this business and you have dreams of stuff you want to make, but I’ve always wanted to make a superhero movie. All of us; me, Dany Garcia, and DJ have had a dream of doing it. So to finally have our superhero movie and to see the first cut of it and realize that we’ve got something special here? I think the fans are going to love it, and I think with the piece we released at DC FanDome, we also showed everyone the tone we’re playing in, where it’s going to be fun, but Black Adam is a very different kind of antihero than what we’re used to.
He’s very different from Shazam!, he’s very different from Superman. If you cross him, a lot of people don’t walk away from that. So that’s fun for us, to have DJ playing a character like that which he typically hasn’t played before. Look, I think you’re going to love it. The movie’s big and it’s a lot of fun. But it’s got a lot of edge to it, and I think the world is ready for that.”
Having been described as the Dirty Harry of superheroes that definitely doesn’t have a no-kill rule, Black Adam is guaranteed to be an altogether different kind of protagonist than we’ve become used to from not just DCEU, but the vast majority of blockbusters adapted from popular comic books. Throw in the world’s biggest movie star, and recipes for success don’t come much more straightforward than that.
