The Black Adam movie from Warner Bros. lost nearly $100M in revenue despite its rigorous efforts and strong promotion. Recently, Dwayne Johnson spoke about how Black Adam was entangled in a “web of new leadership” at Warner Bros. Discovery on Peacock and Kevin Hart’s Hart to Hart.
Although it was Johnson’s biggest opening, the movie did not do well at the box office. Black Adam, in which Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays the title character, was intended to symbolize a long-awaited shift in the “hierarchy of power in the DC Universe,” but it ultimately ended up being just another superhero film.
Dwayne Johnson about What Happened to Black Adam?
Dwayne Johnson spoke on a recent episode of Kevin Hart’s Hart to Heart show, where Kevin Hart said that this movie had a huge opening and wondered why the franchise did not continue with a sequel.
“I think that Black Adam got caught in a vortex of new leadership,” Johnson answers, adding that it “got knocked down a bit because of Covid-related stoppages. Johnson then moved back to issues with leadership.”
“It was so many leadership changes. Anytime you have a company, a publicly-traded company, and you have all those changes in leadership, you have people coming in who creatively, fiscally, are going to make decisions that you may not agree with, philosophically.”
Fans asked Hart to stop hyping it.
Johnson tells Hart, “I think Black Adam is one of those movies that got caught in that web of new leadership.”
Johnson said that this will always be one of the, one of the biggest mysteries he thinks, not only for himself and overall, throughout the business.”
Dwyane Johnson was Bothered that the Sequel Wasn’t Viewed from the Audience’ Standpoint
The film fell short of expectations despite having one of Johnson’s greatest openings of his career. It made $391 million worldwide at the box office, however, the movie only scored a 38 percent rating from critics.
But Johnson noted it bothered him that the sequel wasn’t viewed from the audiences’ standpoint and what they wanted to see. He told Hart,
“As business-minded people who are always thinking audience first, yes we look at and respect the bottom line economically, but also when you think about opportunity and creating opportunity and creating things that are fresh and delivering for the audience, which is our number one boss, when that wasn’t looked at through that lens, it makes things a little bit more challenging.”
Johnson claimed in a statement from last year that after meeting with Gunn, he learned that Black Adam doesn’t fit into “their first chapter of storytelling.”
“James Gunn and I connected, and Black Adam will not be in their first chapter of storytelling,” reads Johnson’s statement.
Johnson criticized Warner Bros. executives’ decisions made following the movie’s release, which finally resulted in his being forced out of the franchise.
Source: YouTube