If the DC comics superhero Black Adam has an origin film today, it’s because of the Hollywood star Dwayne Johnson as he fought to give his character the movie.
The Rock will be joining the DC universe in a feature film revolving around the antihero.
“When the first draft of the movie came to us, it was a combination of Black Adam and Shazam: Two origin stories in one movie,” Johnson told ‘Vanity Fair’ quoted by ‘Deadline’.
“Now that was the goal, so it wasn’t a complete surprise. But when I read that, I just knew in my gut, ‘We can’t make this movie like this. We would be doing Black Adam an incredible disservice’. It would’ve been fine for Shazam having two origin stories converge in one movie, but not good for Black Adam,” he added.
Johnson would then talk to studio executives to express his opinions on breaking up the characters into having their own films and reuniting them in a potential showdown down the road.
“I said, ‘I have to share my thoughts here. It’s very unpopular’ because everybody thought, ‘Hey, this script is great, let’s go make this movie’. I said, I really think that you should make Shazam!, make that movie on its own in the tone that you want. And I think we should separate this as well,” he further said.
According to ‘Deadline,’ in the end, Johnson won, and both Shazam! and Black Adam, have their standalone films and will live in the same DC universe giving fans what they want.