Dwayne Johnson might be a reliable box office draw and one of a dwindling number of talents in Hollywood that can open a movie based entirely on the strength of their name value and personal brand alone, not to mention his status as self-proclaimed Franchise Viagra, but his star vehicles haven’t quite pulled in the astronomical numbers you’d expect from a man of his standing and reputation.
Seven of his eight highest-grossing efforts ever are either Fast & Furious or Jumanji sequels, while the other one is Moana, in which he played a voice-only role and was far from the focal point of the marketing. None of his other non-Fast efforts have managed to cross $500 million globally, with the average ballpark for a standard Dwayne Johnson actioner tending to be somewhere between $300 million and $450 million.
However, insider Daniel Richtman claims that The Rock is planning to launch Black Adam to billion-dollar glory via a huge marketing and promotional push. Obviously, though, it goes without saying that you can’t just decide that a movie is going to join the ten-figure club and then sit back and wait for it to happen, especially when there are no guarantees that his upcoming DCEU debut is even capable of reaching those heights despite the Johnson/superhero combination looking like a recipe for success on paper.
Warner Bros.’ shared universe has been pretty inconsistent at the box office, too, ranging from the $201 million hauled in by Birds of Prey to Aquaman‘s $1.14 billion. Black Adam is definitely going to end up much closer to Arthur Curry’s end of the scale, though, especially when James Wan’s underwater escapade did big business in China. Effects-driven epics always play well in the country, and Johnson is massively popular in the East, so if Black Adam can live up to expectations, then there’s no reason why it can’t realistically crack a billion once the dust settles.
