The Rock Comments On What Went Wrong With Black Adam

In an interview with Kevin Hart for Peacock’s series Hart to Heart (via ComicBook.com), The Rock spoke about the critical and commercial failure of Black Adam, which he blames on changes in leadership at DC. While the film made $393 million on a budget of up to $260 million, the break-even number was said to be closer to $600 million when accounting for other expenses.

Rock said: “I think that Black Adam got caught in a vortex of new leadership, and at that time we were creating Black Adam, developing it, shooting Black Adam, getting knocked back down because of COVID, the shutdowns, got back up,” Johnson said. “There was so many changes in leadership, and, as you know, anytime you have a company of that size and magnitude that’s a publicly traded company, and you have all of those changes in leadership. You have people coming in who, creatively and fiscally, are going to make decisions that you may not agree with. So, I think Black Adam was one of those movies that got caught in that web of new leadership, and you know, that will always be one of the biggest mysteries, I think. Not only for me on our end but also throughout our business because that’s a Kevin [Hart] question, but that was a question out of Wall Street; that was a question out of Hollywood. Like, ‘Wait a second. You had the biggest opening of your career’—sure, no China; that could have been 100, maybe 200 more million dollars. You’re establishing a new superhero. You want to grow out the franchise. You bring back Superman and Henry Cavill. The world went crazy, and we also created a diverse superhero movie. We had just men and women of color in Black Adam 2 as well.”

Dwayne Johnson explaining what happened with Black Adam pic.twitter.com/dl6QdNXRgx

— Neb | 🏳️‍🌈 (@NebsGoodTakes) August 4, 2023