Black Adam End-Credits Scene: What Happens, And What It Means For DC Movies Moving Forward

The following is going to reveal some major spoilers for Black Adam, and the likely future of the DC Universe. Stop reading this story right now if you haven’t seen the blockbuster yet and still want to go into the theater unscathed. Ready? Here we go.

Over the course of Black Adam, our title character (played by Dwayne Johnson) deals with a lot of changes that are foisted on him very quickly. To begin with, he’s awoken from a thousand-year slumber, and immediately confronted by military men who try to take him down… and fail, miserably. As Johnson has been bragging for the past few years, he intends for Black Adam to shift the power dynamic in the current DC universe, so that upcoming DC movies reflect the impact that this character has on the heroes and villains around him. But as audience members sit through the end credits for Jaume Collet-Serra’s superhero movie, they will see that someone is about to stand in Black Adam’s way. 

I know I warned about spoilers, but this is the last time that you will be warned to not read any further unless you want to know what happens.

What Happens In The Black Adam End Credits Scene

As mentioned, Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson) has fought to establish himself throughout this origin movie, and by the picture’s end, he accepts the role of savior/protector of the region of Kahndaq. He thinks that, similar to himself, these people have been mistreated. He doesn’t want to see them abused any longer. So he’s going to hang around and defend them from any threats. 

The first threat arrives almost immediately. A small craft arrives over Kahndaq with a warning for Black Adam from Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). She allows Black Adam to stay in Kahndaq for as long as he wants… so long as he doesn’t leave it. Black Adam answers her threat by confirming that nothing on this planet can stop him. Waller claims that she has access to powers that are NOT from this planet. So he says, “Send them all.” 

With that, the craft explodes and creates a wall of smoke. From that smoke emerges Henry Cavill’s Superman, who states:

Before the screen cuts to black (no pun intended), the camera pans back over to the movie’s main character, who begins to smirk, anticipating what is to come. So, what is to come?

What Might The Black Adam End Credits Scene Mean?

At the very least, it means that Henry Cavill’s Superman has been able to return to the DC universe, where he last officially was seen in the Joss Whedon cut of Justice League… a travesty. Yes, Cavill was showcased to superior effect in Zack Snyder’s four-hour cut of Justice League, but that’s not canon (for the time being). There’s also that hideous mistake when Shazam! included a Superman cameo, but used a body double and didn’t include Cavill’s head. An insult.

However, is Cavill back for more movies? Or is this just a scene to let fans know where Superman happens to be in the moment in this universe. The Rock told CinemaBlend that he has every intention of doing a movie where Black Adam fights Superman. He thinks that the act of building out the DC universe means setting up a scenario where these two superpowers need to deal with each other, sometimes as allies, and sometimes as foes. 

Black Adam producer Hiram Garcia pulled back on that, slightly. He told CinemaBlend that as far as he knows, Cavill hasn’t signed on any dotted lines yet, and the team behind Black Adam is still “fighting” to include him in upcoming movies. 

The real question becomes, “When could a Superman movie ever take place?” Just from a production standpoint, getting another Superman movie together would be a minimum of two years. There was a report in THR that Man of Steel 2 is on the docket at Warner Bros., and that the studio would like to see Mission: Impossible mastermind Christopher McQuarrie take a stab at writing a script. And that would be fantastic, as McQ has intimate knowledge of writing for Cavill. He made him the villain of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, and has said in interviews that during down times on that set, he and Cavill would talk about plans for Superman. They have been thinking this stuff over for some time now. 

Then again, in that story, they also talked about The Flash 2, more movies for Batman villains in the Matt Reeves universe, and a mysterious James Gunn project. So who knows what’s real and what isn’t? DC announces projects all of the time, and sometimes even cancels them while they are in post-production. They have been guilty of shuffling their production decks almost annually, and have played release-date roulette for quite some time now. They also have a full-ish slate of confirmed movies through 2024, so finding a spot for Man of Steel 2, Black Adam 2, or a combination of the two, is going to be a challenge. But it’s a good problem to have.

No matter what happens, the end-credits scene with Cavill is exciting. It’s probably the best thing in Black Adam (which is getting mixed reviews). And now we will wait to see what comes of it in the future.