Never one to let a chance to engage with his fans and pimp a planned project at the same time, Dwayne Johnson took the successful opening of Shazam! this weekend to update us all on the status of twinned super-anti-hero pic Black Adam. And according to the man himself in his new Instagram post, the Adam movie should be shooting next year.
Black Adam, for those who may not know is (in the comics at least) the dark twin of Shazam, a character who has traditionally been a villain, though in recent years has been looking to atone for past crimes, becoming more of an anti-hero. Johnson confirmed that he wanted to play the character in a Shazam film way back in 2014, but after a few years of development (as Johnson once again illuminates in his new message), the decision was made to split the characters' origin stories and get the Billy Batson/Shazam story told first. There are little hints of Adam's backstory in the movie that scored at the box office, especially in the fate of Shazam the wizard (Djimon Hounsou)'s fellow magic-users.
The challenge now, of course, will be to figure out a way to have Dwayne Johnson be the twin of Zachary Levi (not exactly identical, those two) or find a way round the concept that still does justice to Adam's backstory. But then, it wouldn't be the first time that comicbook narrative changes as it hits live-action reality.
As always, Johnson's schedule is packed with potential movies, films in production (he's in Hawaii currently, at work on the new Jumanji sequel) and promotion – plus the odd workout and one or two giant cheat meals – so we'll see if Black Adam definitely gets moving next year. No filmmaker is attached just yet.
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