It sounds like Warner Bros. and DC’s long-gestatingBlack Adammoviemay be in the mold of the studios’ recent, more bold adaptations as opposed to trying to fit into some pre-defined universe.Dwayne Johnsonsigned on to play the Black Adam character years ago, initially in aShazam!movie before it was decided to separate the hero and his nemesis into two separate movies. And because of Johnson’s insanely busy schedule, it’s taken a while forBlack Adamto come to the forefront.
But Dwayne Johnson’s superhero movie debut is now a priority, asBlack Adamis due to start filming in summer 2020and hasRun All Nightand Johnson’sJungle CruisedirectorJaume Collet-Serraset to take the helm. We also recently learned that cinematographerLawrence Sher—who beautifully shot the recent R-rated DC movieJoker—is onboardas the movie’s director of photography, and at Collider’s recent For Your Consideration screening ofJoker, Sher teased a bit about what fans can expect fromBlack Adam.
During a post-screening Q&A, the cinematographer hinted that we may see a DC movie that’s notentirelyunlikeJokerwhenBlack Adamrolls around, as Sher said they hope to continue to push the boundaries of what a “comic book movie” is while still making a grand piece of entertainment:
“One of my interests about it is to continue to sort of—and we’ve talked about it with Dwayne and obviously with Jaume and DC—can we continue to sort of reshape what a comic book movie is? Like yes of course you want it to be entertaining and it has to make a decent amount of money so it can’t live in such a fringe place that it doesn’t bring people in, but can we do something inventive? So that’s the goal is to continue to try to do something a bit inventive with it.”
It’s hard to imagineBlack Adamwill be a gritty, violent, R-rated character study likeJoker, but it is interesting to hear Sher say that Johnson and the filmmaking team aren’t keen on making a traditional comic book movie. Collet-Serra has made a career out of drilling down on specific genres in interesting ways, be it a Hitchcockian thriller withThe Commuteror a contained thriller withThe Shallows, and he clearly knows how to execute exactly what he wants.
We knowBlack Adamwill be an anti-hero story so that allows for a certain amount of grit or darkness, but we also know Johnson is pretty committed to making films that leave audiences entertained/fulfilled, so it’ll be interesting to see how all of that coalesces in this comic book adaptation.
The team assembled so far certainly bodes well, and with Warner Bros. taking a more standalone/individualistic approach to its DC adaptations with films as divergent asShazam!andJoker, it sounds like theBlack Adamteam will have the freedom to make something unique.
We’ll see for ourselves whenBlack Adamhits theaters on August 17, 2025.
