You might think there’s plenty of sarcasm dripping from labeling Black Adam as a potential Academy Awards contender, but those are Warner Bros.’ thoughts, not ours.
Despite under-performing at the box office, being greeted with a shrug of indifference by critics, and proving to be such a fatal misfire that it ended up with star and producer Dwayne Johnson being cast out of the DCU at the very first hurdle, the studio genuinely put Jaume Collet-Serra’s middling misfire forward for consideration.
We’re not just talking about the technical categories, either; for reasons that are surely only capable of being explained by the WB top brass, Black Adam was suggested as a hypothetical candidate for virtually every major trophy under the sun. Shockingly, it didn’t manage to earn a single nomination.
And yet, Johnson has proven himself to be far from a sore loser after he took to Instagram to hype up the biggest night on the Hollywood calendar, which he did in typical style by recording a video caked in sweat from the confines of his home gym.
Maybe one day we’ll see The Rock battling the best and brightest the business has to offer for an acting award that actually matters, but that’s not going to happen until he moves outside of his comfort zone. Black Adam was resolutely within his wheelhouse and still failed, so perhaps we won’t ever be getting Jumanji 7 or Red Notice 5 coming marketed on the back of “Academy Award nominee Dwayne Johnson Presents.”