Black Adam Editors Reveal When They Received Henry Cavill’s Superman Scene (Exclusive)

The man in black has finally arrived in the DC Universe. Black Adam opened in theaters last month to much fanfare, as leading man Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and company led a global press tour that included stops in New York, Toronto, London, Madrid, and Mexico City. This culminated what Johnson has touted as a 14-year journey, as he was initially linked to Teth-Adam way back in 2008. With over a decade of ideas in the Black Adam writers’ room, scribes Adan Sztykiel, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani were tasked with confining those concepts down to one script, director Jaume Collet-Serra was charged with bringing it to life, and editors Mike Sale, ACE and John Lee were trusted with whittling down the footage to 125 minutes.

Speaking to ComicBook.com’s Liam Crowley, Sale pointed to balancing both Teth-Adam and the Justice Society as his biggest challenge.

“You could have a whole movie for each one of those characters. Comic book mythology is deep for all these characters,” Sale said. “What it becomes is what to include and what not to include. How much character development can you do in one movie? How much detail about anything can you do? It was a challenge of how to make a fun movie, a movie that starts this world, starts these characters, makes people want more of it, but is not just a horribly confusing mess with too much information.”

Lee added that the Black Adam production had no shortage of lore available, which helped expedite the introductory process.

“The art department actually did a deep dive into the whole Black Adam history way back to 1945 and did a dossier on everything. There was one on Hawkman, one on Cyclone, one on everyone,” Lee added. “It was there for everyone, for the script writers and for us. But there comes a point where they shoot what they shoot and we cut that up. Certain things are left out because like Mike says, you can’t fit everything in.”

This meant numerous scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, including a moment between Atom Smasher and Cyclone.

“Without going too much into it, there was a scene with Atom Smasher and Cyclone, and it was really there to hint at this storyline in the graphic novels, where Atom Smasher ends up teaming up with Black Adam in a particular story arc,” Lee revealed. “It didn’t really fit, but it was a great scene.”

“And we did feel like in this movie we have that beat,” Sale added. “Where Smasher’s talking to Black Adam near the end of the movie.”

One scene that arrived well after the editing process had begun was the heavily-rumored return of Henry Cavill’s Superman in the post credits. Both Sale and Lee were tasked with editing Kal-El’s confrontation with Teth-Adam, which was something they didn’t discover until they pressed play on the mystery footage.

“It came about very, very late,” Sale said. “We didn’t even know they were shooting it. All of a sudden, it showed up one day.”

“I know they shot Henry in London, so we were walking around going, ‘Hey, what are they shooting in London?’ And then this footage shows up and we’re like, ‘Oh, okay,’” Lee added. “Code of silence for everyone. We all took a pass at it. The producers were very involved, and I think we got it just right. We tested it and everyone just went through the roof. They went crazy when they saw him.”

Editing that post credits scene was a full circle moment for Sale in particular, as the Man of Steel has been linked to his film career since the early stages.

“In 1978, I was a kid in Acton, Massachusetts cleaning up a movie theater. I liked movies, so I worked at the movie theater. One of the movies playing there that year was Superman with Christopher Reeves,” Sale recalled. “I watched that movie many, many times. I love that movie. That movie means something to me. It’s special to me.

“I could tell you, cleaning up popcorn after a Superman matinee with the John Williams score playing while you’re sweeping the popcorn is pretty fun. The day that that footage came in and I was sitting in my editing room and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m working on a movie that might have Superman in it.’ I was just sitting there and it was just an emotional moment. I was just like, ‘I hope this happens.’”

Not only did that Superman cameo happen, but it appears to be just the beginning for Cavill’s Clark Kent. The British actor recently teased that the Black Adam appearance is just a “very small taste of what’s to come.” Beyond that, Cavill’s recent departure from Netflix’s The Witcher has also led to speculation that his schedule could be filling up with Superman-related projects.

Black Adam is now playing in theaters.