Black Adam: How The Dwayne Johnson Movie Can Learn From DCEU’s Mistakes
After a series of stumbles and an exciting promise of a new era, the DC Extended Universe has taught the upcoming Black Adam exactly what to avoid in order to succeed. Hollywood's biggest action hero Dwayne Johnson will star in the villain-centered film, which is set to release in 2021, right after the game-changing The Batman and The Suicide Squad. Although these reboots will take the DCEU in a new direction, Black Adam still sticks to the original plan that likely aims to pit the titular villain against Zachary Levi's caped superhero in a Shazam! sequel. However, the mistakes that led Warner Bros. to switch gears can serve as useful lessons for DC's next chapter of Shazam! lore.
The cinematic adaptation of Shazam's nemesis has been cooking for quite a long time, with Dwayne Johnson attached to the project since 2008 - five years before the DCEU was starting to take shape with Zack Snyder's Man of Steel. More than a decade later, DC's shared cinematic universe has built enough foundations for more enigmatic characters like Black Adam to show up and expand its mythology, despite the mixed reception of several of its previous titles. Now, a whole multiverse of DC properties is opening up and different continuities are going to start branching out in the next few years, but that doesn't mean Black Adam has to overcomplicate its vision to become the movie it has long been preparing to be.
Precisely, the most crucial error Black Adam needs to avoid is prioritizing setups for future installments over the self-contained story it's trying to tell. Such was one of the main flaws in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which rushed over the introduction of DC's most popular heroes barely two movies into the franchise. As a result, the otherwise somber encounter of the world's finest struggled to keep up and find a reasonable justification to conciliate the two heroes, which in turn affected the characters' arcs and the quality of the overarching narrative as a whole.
Similarly, Suicide Squad failed to find balance in its tone. While it stands as an entertaining action movie and blessed fans with Margot Robbie's flawless interpretation of Harley Quinn, it still couldn't define the right angle to a superhero film where the villains are the stars. The movie instead became an amalgamation of interesting ideas that never really chose which one to focus on. This mistake is of utmost relevance to Black Adam, as both films center on legendary DC villains with a comedy-savvy cast. Dwayne Johnson has demonstrated to have a natural talent balancing high-octane action sequences, comedy, and gripping drama, therefore Black Adam could transform Suicide Squad's primary weakness into an advantage. Plus, Black Adam's bigger focus on a single character can give Hollywood's most profitable action star more space to explore the role of a compelling villain while letting him use his action and comedy strengths he's so famously known for.
As for the trouble-riddled Justice League, there's no way to guarantee Black Adam can escape unexpected production issues. What the upcoming movie can do is be prepared to accommodate to any circumstance even remotely similar to those that plagued the DCEU's most controversial offering. Not depending on so many factors such as an ensemble cast or an established hero is the first step, but the freedom that comes with DC's new continuity is an even more valuable benefit that allows for more creative solutions if unforeseen obstacles were to appear along the way.
If what The Flash and Justice League's Snyder Cut have teased is true, the DCEU has already learned enough from its own mistakes. Dwayne Johnson's ideal casting as the titular villain in Black Adam is just the first of many hits on the bullseye. It's just a matter of time until more positive surprises surface from the film's development.