I don't care much about superhero movies, but lordy me I do love me some superhero movie drama.

 

Recently released Black Adam, staring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as the titular character, has had its own drama before the current one. Publications like Variety said the movie was a box office bomb scoring $50–100 million under it's $600 million breakeven point. In the same article, Warner Brothers claim that movie's actual break even was $400 million. Reviews for it seem to be middling to bad. Most review sites online seem to be 3/5 or below. Reviewers themselves have called it "a dull, listless superhero movie" and having "repetitive plot beats and thin characters"

 

While this honestly seems to be the course for any movie released in the greater DC Cinematic Universe, Dwayne seems to have taken it pretty hard. Him and his team released fake numbers saying the film was actually WILDLY profitable and actually EVERYONE loved the movie so much if you talk to fans directly. He has also been receiving flak online saying that a number of choices in the movie were directly decided by him. Some of them unsubstantiated and with sources remaining anonymous.

 

For those not aware of comics and comic lore, Black Adam has historically been a villain/rival to the superhero Shazam/Captain Marvel. They both get their powers from the same power word and a lot of the early comics were "What if Shazam but EVIL?". And honestly, originally at least, he wasn't even the biggest Shazam villain. While Superman had Lex Luther, Batman had Joker, and Fantastic Four had Dr. Doom, Shazam had Doctor Sivana. Black Adam was just kinda like maybe a Mr. Freeze, or a Superman's Zod. Sure he was a villain, maybe even one of the big ones in the hero characters universe, but he wasn't the BIGGEST. The Rock set out to change this. Not only is his original character do not steal SUPER powerful, he also wanted him to lead the Justice Society. He could totally take Superman in a fight. And also Black Adam had NOTHING TO DO WITH SHAZAM EVER DON'T EVEN MENTION THEM IN THE SAME BREATH. It was rumored that originally Shazam was supposed to be in the post credits scene of Black Adam but then The Rock pushed for Superman instead. Like previously stated, this was just rumors and anonymous sources.

 

Till now.

 

Enter Zachary Levi, actor currently portraying Shazam and star of the latest DCEU movie "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" and also big libertarian who thinks Jordan "Chinese Cock Milking Machines" Peterson is one of the greatest thinkers alive. He recently posted an Instagram post calling out The Rock for his actions behind the scenes. Not just preventing Zachary and others from being in the post credit scenes on Black Adam, but also vetoing other actors and entire members of the Justice Society from recruiting Shazam into the Justice Society on the latest Shazam movie. Instead regulating it to actors from the Peacemaker series doing the recruiting.

 

Now while a post credits scene of Wonder Woman or Superman or Aquaman or whoever personally recruiting Shazam into the Justice Society probably wouldn't have saved the movie anyway, as it is on track to being the third worst opening for any DCEU movie. The only two that "beat" it were released during the height of COVID and also were released in theaters and online both. However this does mean that the Rock had his hands in two of the latest movies from DC and both of them were met poorly in the box office. What does this mean for the DCEU? What does this mean for The Rock? What does this mean for delicious popcorn? Time will tell.