UPPING THE ANTIHERO
Dwayne Johnson is Black Adam’ asserts the black-on-white lettering on the cinema marquee at the Warner Bros lot in Burbank, California. While this is fairly standard marketing speak, there is an argument to be made in this case that the star and hero (well, antihero, but we’ll get to that) are pretty much indivisible. This DC adaptation has been a passion project for Johnson for years, and his tenacity, commitment, and superhuman bulk have brought it to life, finally.
It’s June 2022, and Total Film is on the WB lot to catch up with Johnson and the Black Adam filmmaking team at the launch of the first trailer. After a double-bill of that teaser on the big screen, TF is granted a private audience with the main man. Johnson – who dubs the character #TheManInBlack on social – is appropriately attired today: black knitted polo, black trousers, black shoes (no socks). On his left sleeve, stretched around tree-trunk biceps, are two embroidered lightning bolts, barely visible, black on black. It’s a subtle reference to a character who has long lived with him.
“Twenty-plus years, I would say,” guesses Johnson when TF asks how far back his obsession with the character – that he’s long publicly fought to bring to the screen – goes. “I have, from a little boy, just always gravitated towards DC comics and DC superheroes and DC supervillains. I remember growing up, and there was not a superhero in the DC Universe, at least that I was exposed to in Saturday morning cartoons, that looked like me. But I still fell in love with all of them, and I fell in love with the villains even more. And then years later, once I started to expose myself to the deeper layers throughout the DC universe of comics – and this was just about when I was getting out of college – I was exposed to Black Adam. So it goes to way back then.”
The character has lived long in Johnson’s imagination, and the idea of portraying him on screen is something that he has been thinking about seriously for about 15 years. He recalls, in 2006 or 2007, having fun in an interview when the discussion moved to superheroes, and Shazam was suggested.
“And I said, ‘Oh, I like Shazam, too,’” remembers Johnson.
