Dwayne Johnson plays Teth-Adam, Shazam’s future archenemy, as Black Adam.
It’s been 15 years since Dwayne Johnson first expressed interest in playing Black Adam, a classic DC Comics supervisor dating back to the 1940s. The project was stuck in development hell for years, but the film will finally hit theaters this fall. And now we have the first trailer for Black Adam, which gives us a look at the origin story of the character and his inevitable encounter with the Justice Society of America (JSA).
(Spoilers for some of the comics below.)
The character made a cameo as a villain in the first issue of The Marvel Family comics in 1945. Canonically, he is an ancient Egyptian named Teth-Adam, whom the wizard Shazam chooses to succeed. Teth-Adam was supposed to be pure in heart, but once endowed with the powers of Shazam, he was corrupted, killed the ruling Pharaoh, and took the Egyptian throne. Shazam could not revoke these powers, so he exiled Teth-Adam to the farthest star in the universe.
It took Teth-Adam 5,000 years to return to Earth (after all, it was the 1940s), when he met the Marvel family. Eventually, a family member tricks him into saying “Shazam” again, and Teth-Adam returns to his human form, instantly aging 5,000 years. This is the story shown in Shazam in 2019, when the magician tells what happened to young Billy Batson. (In the version of this film, Teth-Adam, also known as Black Adam, unleashed the seven deadly sins on Earth and wiped out entire civilizations.)
Enlarge / Black Adam and Hawkman, debating the ethics of heroes who kill the bad guys.
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DC Comics acquired the rights to Black Adam in the 1970s, and became a recurring character in his Shazam family comics. Initial interest in making a character-focused film dates back to the early 2000s, with Johnson in the lead role, but New Line Cinema suspended development in 2009. In 2014, Warner Bros. picked up the project with intent. to make Black Adam part of the DCEU. Originally, Johnson’s Black Adam was supposed to look bad on Shazam, but at the time he was a huge, profitable movie star, and the studio decided to give him an independent film. (Appears briefly in hologram form when the wizard tells Billy the background story.)
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Black Adam reunites Johnson with Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra. The premise of the film is that a black Adam in exile reappears about 5,000 years after his exile and is thrown into the modern world, where his ruthless approach of not taking prisoners to fight criminals does not quite fit the dominant culture. mores.
Black Adam will also introduce the JSA to the DCEU. Pierce Brosnan plays Kent Nelson, also known as Doctor Fate, a JSA member wearing a magic helmet. Noah Centineo plays Atom Smasher, a JSA member who can manipulate its molecular structure to change its size and strength. Aldis Hodge plays Hawkman, an archaeologist and the reincarnation of an Egyptian prince. Its distinctive wings give it the power to fly. And Quintess Swindell plays Cyclone, the granddaughter of the Red Tornado, who controls the wind and can make sound.
Enlarge / Pierce Brosnan plays Doctor Fate, who learned witchcraft and is in possession of the magical Helmet of Destiny.
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The cast also includes Sarah Shahi as Adrianna Tomaz, a college professor and resistance fighter in the fictional nation of Kahndaq, the original homeland of Black Adam. She has a love interest in comics and seems likely to play a similar role in the film. We also know that the criminal group Intergang will appear in the film.
The trailer hints at the character’s origin story, as we see Teth-Adam as a slave in ancient Egypt who loses his son and is given god-like powers quite similar to those of Shazam. But otherwise we don’t learn much about the plot. Apparently, this is by design, according to producer Hiram Garcia, who recently told io9 that this first trailer is meant to be more of a teaser. There are samples of Atom Smasher, Cyclone and Doctor Fate, who tells Black Adam that he can choose to be a villain or a savior of this world. Thera also has a revealing interaction with Hawkman, who is possibly positioning himself as the moral role of Black Adam’s antihero. Hawkman insists that superheroes don’t kill people. “Well, yes,” Black Adam replies. And, of course, we get snippets of Johnson’s trademark dry wit.
Black Adam hits theaters on October 21, 2022.
Warner Bros.
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