Written By Kieran Bugg
Dwayne Johnson has opened up on Black Adam’s poor critical reception and DC Studios recasting Henry Cavill as Superman. While promoting his long awaited DC solo movie Black Adam, Dwayne Johnson kept using this same phrase.
“The hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is about to change!”
And it did, just not in the way that he hoped. Upon release, Black Adam was completely ripped to pieces by critics.
The movie holds a disappointing score of 39% on Rotten Tomatoes with the critic consensus calling it an uneven letdown. Moreover, Black Adam also didn’t achieve the box office success that Warner Bros. were expecting.
As a result, many called The Man In Black’s first solo outing a huge critical and financial flop. While it definitely could’ve performed better than it did, the movie was by no means a financial flop.
Dwayne Johnson Opens Up On Black Adam’s Poor Reception And Superman Recast
Image: Warner Bros. Animation
Over $300 million worldwide is actually a decent haul. Nonetheless, fans across the world were pleasantly surprised by the movie’s stylish action scenes and stellar cast.
The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes sits at a more upbeat score of 88%. Furthermore, while attending this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, Dwayne Johnson opened up Black Adam’s overall reception.
The actor presented the Oscar for Best Animated Feature alongside his Jungle Cruise co-star Emily Blunt. When asked about the negative response Black Adam received from critics, Johnson replied:
“All that I can do, and all that we could do when we were making ‘Black Adam,’ was to put our best foot forward and surround ourselves with the best people and deliver the best movie we could, our [Rotten Tomatoes] audience score was in the 90s. Critics took a couple shots, but that’s just the business of it.”
An unsurprisingly humble response from the Hollywood legend. In addition, he was also asked what he thought about DC’s upsetting decision to recast Henry Cavill as Superman.
Johnson compared Cavill’s forced exit from the role to a professional football player being fired by the team’s new owner. A very accurate take. His exact words were:
“It’s almost like when you have a pro football team and your quarterback wins championships and your head coach wins championships and then a new owner comes in and says, ‘Not my coach, not my quarterback. I’m going to go with somebody new.’”
In a way it sounds like he just took a shot at DC Studio’s co-leaders James Gunn and Peter Safran. Seems unlikely though as Johnson previously confirmed he has spoken with James Gunn about Black Adam’s potential future.
In a previous interview, the former wrestler revealed certain details of their conversation about DC’s future. He explained:
“James Gunn and I connected, and Black Adam will not be in their first chapter of storytelling, however, DC and Seven Bucks have agreed to continue exploring the most valuable ways Black Adam can be utilized in future DC multiverse chapters.”
Dwayne Johnson Opens Up On Black Adam’s Poor Reception And Superman Recast
Image: Warner Bros. Discovery
While Johnson’s future as the anti-hero is looking doubtful, it seems that the door hasn’t shut completely. His comments about Black Adam’s potential involvement in the DC multiverse does sound rather promising.
James Gunn did confirm that there will be DC movies set within their own continuity outside of his DCU plans. Matt Reeves’ The Batman franchise and Todd Phelps’ Joker solo movies are both prime examples of this.
Plus Zack Snyder has recently urged fans in a cryptic video to continue their support for his vision. Hopefully this all means more is happening behind the scenes than we think.