Dwayne Johnson is busy promoting his latest film, Furious 7, and can’t seem to escape questions about his upcoming role as Black Adam in DC and Warner Brothers’ Shazam movie. He not only teased that the film could arrive sooner than its planned 2019 release date, but recently hinted at Black Adam’s potential role in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Now, Johnson has offered a script update and opened up a bit about the casting of the film’s titular hero.
The reason we’ve been hearing a lot more about Black Adam than Shazam himself is because that role has yet to be cast. Johnson himself confirmed this in a new interview with MTV, saying:
“No, we haven’t picked Shazam yet, and we have been working on the script.”
The “we” there is very important, because it sounds like Johnson is very involved in the script process, and in developing Black Adam as a character. He’s long teased that Black Adam will be an anti-hero, but notes that that distinction has to be earned:
“Half the scripts [have] already come in. Fantastic, very excited about it. And what I’m really excited about is – because again, I’ve lived with this character, and this opportunity for almost 10 years now, so it’s like, in my DNA! I’m like a little kid, and it’s the opportunity to create this journey, but that journey has to start out properly. And starting off properly is [Black Adam] not being a hero. That’s got to be earned, so he starts off as a slave. And he’s pissed off, and people are going to pay. But eventually down the line he’ll become an anti-hero.”
Johnson’s details line up perfectly with the New 52 iteration of the character, giving us a pretty clear picture of what to expect from Shazam’s nemesis when he finally arrives on screen. What we can expect from Shazam, however, remains a mystery until the role is finally cast. With more Furious 7 press junkets to attend, perhaps Johnson will let some more details slip in the coming days.
Shazam will hit theaters on April 5th, 2019.
