Black Adam is a `labour of love'

Dwayne Johnson has been talking about wanting to bring Black Adam to the big screen for more than a decade.

As DC readied an interconnected slate of superhero films featuring characters such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman, the action man kept thinking about the possibilities that lay in a story charting the anti-hero who first debuted in 1945 as the sworn enemy of Shazam after he too was gifted extraordinary powers.

“When you look at the comics and the mythology, Black Adam was such a cool character, with a really interesting backstory,” Johnson, 50, said in conversation with a group of journalists recently. “He's blessed with these superpowers that I felt that a lot of people don't know.”

Johnson called the adventure a “passion project” for many years, but added that it was important to listen to the fans before donning the dark suit emblazoned with a lightning bolt across his chest. “They will always guide you,” he said. “This has been a labour of love. We have something special here that I think fans are going to gravitate toward, but it's also an opportunity to expand the DC Universe.”

Originally, the character was set to be introduced alongside Shazam, which starred Zachary Levi as the wisecracking hero in 2019, but after reading an early script, Johnson called his producing partners Hiram Garcia and Beau Flynn and said the stories needed to be split in two.

“I immediately felt like we had to separate the two movies,” he said. “We had to honour Shazam and his origin story and what that can be for the fans, but we also needed to tell our story as well.”

With most of the world, outside of hardcore comic book fans, not knowing who Black Adam was, it was an opportunity for him to embody a character that is a departure from ones he's played in the past. Black Adam will at times be the hero, but his justice comes at a cost.

But alongside his Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet- Serra behind the camera, a big screen Black Adam movie was also a chance for him to disrupt the superhero genre.

“He's a character who at times is a supervillain and other times is a superhero,” Johnson said. “He walks this fine line.”

When it hits theatres Oct. 21, Black Adam is set to follow the titular anti-hero as he re-emerges nearly 5,000 years after being imprisoned in an earthly tomb just as he was bestowed super powers by Egyptian Gods.

Wrecked by grief over the death of his family, and cursed with godlike abilities, the warrior emerges to issue his own brand of justice in a morally ambiguous world.

But it's a vengeful path that will put him in conflict with members of the Justice Society of America, who will make their first live-action appearance with Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate, Aldis Hodge as Hawkman, Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone and Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher.

“For me, it's not just about honouring Black Adam, but Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Cyclone and Atom Smasher as well,” Collet- Sera said. “Hawkman and Doctor Fate have an incredible history that we're just touching on in this movie. I was honoured to put them on the screen for the first time, but I left room out there for them to explore.”