With Black Adam, can Dwayne Johson live up to his reputation as the rescuer of struggling franchises?

The Rock is a man of many talents, but chief among them is his ability to ‘rescue’ failing franchises. He’s the movie star equivalent of a crisis consultant. And Warner Bros’ DC Extended Universe has certainly been in crisis mode ever since it began. Black Adam is expected to bring about a new era of success for the struggling series.

The background

Launched in 2013 under the stewardship of filmmaker Zack Snyder, the DCEU was billed as WB’s answer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which began in 2008 under Paramount, but has become the behemoth that it is after being taken over by Disney. By 2016, Marvel was well on its way to becoming the biggest film franchise of all time, having already wrapped Phase I. In response, WB announced a massive slate of superhero movies that would mimic the MCU’s strategy of success. But if only things were so simple.

The first film in the DCEU, the Superman reboot Man of Steel, underperformed commercially and didn’t exactly score glowing reviews. Star Henry Cavill was welcomed warmly, but Snyder’s tendency for CGI-fuelled action found resistance. The studio’s fears were warranted, because the reaction to his 2016 follow-up, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, was even more negative.

Now in proper panic mode, the studio reportedly mandated last-minute rewrites on Snyder’s team-up film, Justice League, which was weeks away from filming when the bad reviews for BvS came in. And in what has since become the stuff of Hollywood legend, Snyder was removed from the project — at the time, the official reason was attributed to a personal tragedy — and Avengers director Joss Whedon was brought in to create a Frankenstein version of the film that aimed to lighten the dark tone of Snyder’s original vision.

Justice League bombed, and left WB with disinterested stars, no clear direction, and an uphill task to rebuild its most high-value film franchise.

The second wave

After the dour Snyder years, in which the studio released just one bonafide winner — Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, which counts Snyder as a producer and co-writer — WB shifted focus to making more traditional superhero movies. The second wave of the DCEU saw the release of the massively successful Aquaman movie, the crowd-pleasing Shazam! but also three commercial misfires — Birds of Prey, The Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman 1984. For assistance, they turned to The Rock.

What does The Rock bring to the table?

Having started out in pro-wrestling, The Rock made his acting debut with a supporting role in The Mummy Returns, and went on to star in the film’s spinoff, The Scorpion King. After a string of smaller films, many of which were moderately successful, he was brought on board the struggling Fast & Furious franchise. The Rock’s first film in the series, Fast Five quickly became the most well-received, and the most-successful. His character, Luke Hobbs, became a fan-favourite.

Over the next couple of years, he was cast in two other soft-reboots — GI Joe: Retaliation and Journey 2 the Centre of the Earth. Both films outperformed their predecessors, with a significant chunk of the credit being directed towards The Rock.

There was no looking back. The Rock had now become someone who could not only get massive movies greenlit on the strength of his name alone, but he also began producing many of these films — Skyscraper, Rampage, San Andreas. Not all of them succeeded; The Rock has seen his share of misfires, most notably Baywatch, Pain & Gain, and Hercules — at least two of them were designed to start franchises — but his hit-rate was unusually high.

When a star achieves that level of success, they’re courted by studios to set up their own projects, and basically given the opportunity to call dibs on existing IP that they might be passionate about. And going back as far as 2013, The Rock had his eyes set on Black Adam.

The 10-year plan

With its troubles nowhere near ending, WB began devising a way for The Rock to be introduced into the franchise. The plan was to originally have him as the antagonist in Shazam! but everybody felt that Black Adam deserved his own film. So, while Shazam! was turned into a comedic body-swap movie with a moderate budget, no expense was spared in producing The Rock’s more typical Black Adam project.

At an earnings call earlier this year, WB Discovery CEO David Zaslav spoke about the potential gold mine they’ve been sitting on, without having fully exploited. “You look at Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, these are brands that are known everywhere in the world,” Zaslav said. “And the ability to drive those all over the world with great story is a big opportunity for us. We have done a reset. We’ve restructured the business. We’re going to focus where there will be a team with a 10-year plan focusing just on DC.”

And Johnson is reportedly going to be a big influence on those 10 years.

A new era

In several interviews in the run-up to the film’s release, The Rock has suggested that Black Adam is going to be a turning point for the DCEU, where the franchise sheds its past troubles and enters a new era. This job was previously given to director Andy Muschietti and his timeline resetting The Flash movie. But after that film ran into major trouble thanks to star Ezra Miller’s conflicts with the law, it seemed like WB retrofitted Black Adam to take on the mantle of course-correcting the franchise.

“In addition to the hierarchy of power that I’ve been talking about, this pendulum swing [will] usher in a new era of the DC Universe. A new antihero era; a new era of tone, and a new era of story,” The Rock said. “And also, it’s this incredible opportunity that we have at Seven Bucks Productions for Black Adam’s storytelling to build out the DC Universe with disruption and with respect. Listening to the fans, because they’ll always guide you.”

What does the future hold?

All signs suggest that Black Adam will eventually build towards the return of Cavill’s Superman, who will be brought back into the fold for a potential a face-off against Black Adam in a future film. A recent The Hollywood Reporter article said that WB is developing Man of Steel 2 with Cavill eyed to return, even as The Rock circles other properties within the DCEU.

Fun fact: The Rock’s producing partner (former wife Hiram Garcia) also happens to be Cavill’s manager. The scene teasing Superman’s return was actually shot just last month, after a ‘furious round of negotiating’ and The Rock consciously side-stepping a unequivocal no from DC Films chief Walter Hamada and taking his demands all the way to the top of the WB leadership.

Black Adam is directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, a B-movie specialist who broke into the big leagues with the action adventure film Jungle Cruise, also starring The Rock. That film was released at the height of the pandemic, and could barely recoup its astronomical budget. Black Adam will also introduce the Justice Society of America, featuring Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo), Sabbac (Marwan Kenzari), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) and Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan).