Black Adam Star Noah Centineo Preparing for Atom Smasher Role

Atom Smasher might not be one of the best-known members of the Justice Society of America, but for one reason or another, he always seems to be on the front lines when it comes time to roll out first looks at DC’s Earth-2. In the second season of The CW’s The Flash, the character — played by former WWE superstar Adam “The Edge” Copeland — was the villain in the season premiere, making him one of the first characters from any alternate Earth, let alone Earth-2, that ever appeared in the Arrowverse. Now, Noah Centineo will play the character on the big screen in Black Adam.

The actor, best known for his roles in Netflix’s popular To All the Boys movies with X-Men and Deadly Class franchise star Lana Condor, is getting primed for the role. In addition to Atom Smasher, Centineo is supposed to eventually play He-Man in Masters of the Universe, so it’s no surprise to see him buckling down.

Hollywood gossip site Just Jared caught shots of the actor outside his gym, where he has said he plans to spend two hours a day in “high intensity training” to prepare for the role.

“I’m gonna to be starting on the new Black Adam in about like two months,” Centineo recently said during an interview with Australian radio host Smallzy on Monday. “Hopefully if all goes to plan, which I hope it does. I’m very excited to do that, be a superhero which I’ve never done before, which should be fun.”

Black Adam, which is set to be directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Jungle Cruise, House of Wax), will star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the role of the titular DC antihero, a precursor to Billy Batson’s Shazam as one of the Wizard’s charges. His story was briefly touched on in Shazam!, albeit without naming Adam himself. The movie will also feature Aldis Hodge as Hawkman and Sarah Shahi, reportedly in the role of Adrianna Tomaz,the heroine known in the comics as Isis. While that name has been off-limits for a while due to the terrorist group that uses the moniker, a version of the character has been appearing on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow — a show which also once featured Hawkman! — in the form of Zari Tarazi (Tala Ashe).

Black Adam is set to go into production soon, with an eye toward a likely 2022 release date. As of this writing, there is no official release date for the film, which was originally planned to be released in late 2020, and then scheduled for December 2021, but was delayed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.