When a movie gets good reviews, you’ll usually see commercials for that movie touting all the positive responses with sexy quotes from critics talking about how great a movie is. When the critical response for a movie isn’t that great, you have to look for other ways to promote success. Such is the case with Black Adam, because while critics don’t love it, a lot of fans do.
Dwayne Johnson has always been a guy who has wanted to make movies that make lots of fans happy, and in Black Adam he has apparently succeeded. While the movie’s critics score on Rotten Tomatoes is not that great, sitting at 39%, its audience score is actually a really impressive 90%, and Johnson is thanking the fans on Twitter for making Black Adam a success.
A huge THANK YOU!!!! to the fans for our amazing 90% Audience Score for #BlackAdam Highest audience score for a DC theatrical film since Dark Knight. As always, the fans matter most and we’re always committed to deliver for them.So make sure you stay til the end credits… 🤯⚡️ https://t.co/boHfsKX0DqOctober 24, 2022
It would be one thing if Black Adam simply had a better audience score than it did a critics score. Lots of movies end up with that, but in this case the audience score isn’t just acceptable, it’s pretty great, since it’s being compared favorably to the Dark Knight trilogy. Whatever you think of the recent generation of DC movies, reaction, even from fans, has been mixed in many cases, but not here.
The other way that Black Adam fans spoke their approval is with their money. The movie opened at the top of the box office with a $67 million opening weekend, which is an impressive first weekend for a movie based on a comic book character that a lot of people don’t know, that’s opening in the middle of October. It's a big opening for Dwayne Johnson personally. While the man is a massive star whose name tends to equal box office success, rarely does he put up such big numbers.
Of course, one does have to wonder if the Black Adam mid-credits scene referenced in Johnson’s tweet has something to do with both the film’s strong box office and it’s incredibly positive audience response. We’ll avoid spoilers if you’re the one person on earth who hasn’t either seen the scene in question, or had it spoiled for you, but needless to say a lot of fans are really excited about the future of DC movies after this one.
Black Adam certainly isn’t the first movie that fans love more than critics, and it certainly won’t be the last. At the end of the day, while critical reception and awards are nice, studios are looking for financial success, so the audience is more important than the critics. Unless something crazy happens to this movie going forward, it likely means that sequels, and other future opportunities for Black Adam as a character are likely. It looks like the balance of power in the DC universe really has shifted.
