Dwayne Johnson is back in black in a new look at DC’s Black Adam. Suiting up as Kahndaq anti-hero Teth-Adam for the cover of Total Film, the magazine goes into Johnson’s decade-plus journey to becoming the champion granted great power by the ancient wizard Shazam (Djimon Hounsou). “The hierarchy of power in the [DC Extended Universe] is about to change — let’s be destructive,” Johnson is quoted as saying on the cover revealing an electrifying new look at the “Kahndaq Disrupter.” See it below.
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The precursor of modern-day superhero Billy Batson (Asher Angel) and his adult alter-ego Shazam (Zachary Levi), Johnson’s Black Adam is Teth-Adam: a Kahndaq slave who unleashes the Seven Deadly Sins into the world. Finally freed after 5,000 years, Black Adam gives his word: no one will stop him ever again.
That includes the mighty metahumans of the Justice Society of America: Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo), Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), and Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan).
“Black Adam has been with me for over ten years now. And that gives you an idea of how passionate I am with this project, how passionate our [production company] Seven Bucks is about this project,” Johnson said in a video published to Instagram. “Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema, DC, they have been so incredibly supportive over the years. This has been over 10 years [in the making]. In 2008, we started talking about this, so it has required patience by all of us as partners, and I am a much different man and an actor than I was 10 years ago.”
The DCEU-disrupting Shazam! spinoff introduces Black Adam as a “ruthless keeper of justice,” said Johnson at DC FanDome, describing his powerful anti-hero as “the judge, the jury, and the executioner. He believes in an eye for an eye. He will always do everything he can to protect his people, more so protect his family.”
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Johnson’s Jungle Cruise), DC Films’ Black Adam flies into theaters on July 29, 2022.