Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam is one of those DC movies that feels like it’s been stuck in development hell for quite a while. But, in keeping with his rather resolute nature, Johnson hasn’t let that stop him from adamantly talking up the project, and keeping it on the rails. With this anti-hero’s journey now in front of cameras, Black Adam is becoming a very real movie; and it could be the start of a very fruitful DC Comics cinematic franchise.
Speaking about the film to Variety, Black Adam producer Dany Garcia revealed a short, but ambitious detail of how far the team wants to take this would-be saga. And while there’s no specific figure attached to how many times we’ll get to see Teth-Adam shake things up at the movies, there is a particular scope in play. Garcia’s comment on the matter is as follows:
We want to do many. We’re excited about our long-term relationship with DC on this property.
“Many” is a word that, while not speaking to any specific number of Black Adam installments, certainly fits when talking about the many facets of this project. Director Jaume Collet-Serra’s big Warner Bros comic movie is about to kick off the cinematic incarnation of a character who’s been around in one way or form since 1945, so there’s a lot of stories that the Black Adam franchise could tell. But more importantly, when Dwayne Johnson commits himself to a franchise, he tends to go all in; so this sort of plan is no surprise at all.
There will certainly be, at the very least, two films featuring Black Adam’s titular menace. Dwayne Johnson’s character Teth-Adam will have to tangle with the hero that gives Shazam its name at some point in time. So besides watching Johnson terrorize whomever crosses his path in his origin story, we’ll probably see the Shazam Family, or at the very least Billy Batson’s superpowered alter ego, tussling with him in another Shazam movie. In fact, we’d even place a bet on the odds of a potential Black Adam post-credits sequence hinting at that very conflict.
Naturally, the number of Black Adam movies the world will get is going to be determined by how successful this first entry happens to be. Slated to be released into theaters next July, Dwayne Johnson’s anti-heroics will be contending with the aftermath of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Fantastic Beasts 3, both of which are going to be released earlier in July 2022. But the greatest threat, unless it happens to move its release date to some other point in the year, is the fact that Indiana Jones 5 will also be dropping in the same frame as Black Adam.
It’s kind of fitting that the greatest competition for Black Adam would be an archeologist, as both that film and Indiana Jones 5 will be in theaters on July 29, 2022. But, should Dwayne Johnson’s powers prevail against Harrison Ford’s iconic adventure hero, you can probably be sure that Black Adam will be around for many films to come.
