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Monday, July 26, 2021

Dwayne Johnson's Farewell to the Crew of "Black Adam" and How I feel About the Movie So Far.



In the above Instagram post, The Rock...er...Dwayne Johnson thanks the cast and crew of the upcoming Black Adam movie on his last day of filming. We can see his monster physique is covered by a loose tunic that drapes about him like a tent off of those massive shoulders. In addition to his words being very gracious, generous, and thankful towards the crew, it also really sounds like this role is a very big deal for him.

He also posted the following text:  Honored and proud to say that’s an official wrap on BLACK ADAM⚡️

I knew many years ago, the opportunity for me to make BLACK ADAM would be a ONCE IN A CAREER EVENT.

It has been my true honor to go shoulder to shoulder with over 1,000 brilliant and hungry crew of filmmakers and storytellers to bring the antihero known as, BLACK ADAM to life.

This has been one for the ages and easily the hardest labor and toughest grind mentally and physically of my entire career.

Worth. Every. Second.

Love you all.
Thank you all.
And I’ll see you down the road.
Now go have some fun with that $10,000 🤣💰

The hierarchy of power in the DC UNIVERSE is changing.

Black Adam⚡️
#themaninblack 

I recall back in the mid 2000's when an MTV survey asked whether he should play Captain Marvel or Black Adam (rumors had him pegged as either one) he responded to the result (Black Adam) by saying that he would be interested in talking about it (or words to that effect). It was apparent that he was not so familiar with t he character. Here is an article about the results of that poll. Through the years that the project was in pre-production hell, however (repeatedly being delayed with directors and writers being hired and fired), he would talk about the character as being important, and meaningful. When Peter Segal and John August were tapped as director and writer, things were really looking up for the project, and when a comedy that they worked on featuring Johnson was released, some folks were trying to deconstruct it to see what it revealed abut how they would work together for the SHAZAM! movie. Since then, Johnson had become such a big star that it was decided to give him his own stand-alone Black Adam movie. This makes sense, because Johnson's presence in the movie would distract from the lead characters, Billy Batson and his super-hero alter ego. Besides, with two movies instead of one, the DCCU will have more entries into the superhero film realm, and potentially more profits. So I am interested and excited to see this movie. The cast of characters alone is fascinating (Hawkman, Dr. Fate, and Isis, particularly) showing that DC is not afraid to put lesser-known, even obscure superheroes in their movie, trusting that the overall popularity of superhero movies, and the specific quality of this movies will be strong enough to overcome the unfamiliarity of the characters.

But they have also cast some popular names in the movie as those characters (Aldis Hodge, Pierce Brosnan, and Sarah Shahi), meaning that the actors believe in the project and the studio is willing to spend that kind of money on it. It would be easy to say that everything about this movie is just being built around the star power of Dwayne Johnson, but why does he have such star power? Because enough of his recent movies have been entertaining, and he has been entertaining in them. He has proven himself to be likeable, with charisma to burn, and just good enough an actor to pull off most of the roles that he has been given. I saw him as very much an Errol Flynn type in "The Scorpion King," and that franchise has suffered without him. H did well as a villain type in his debut in "Star Trek: Voyager" and "The Mummy Returns," so we will see how he does as the "anti-hero" that DC has developed Black Adam into since his revival in Jerry Ordway's "The Power of SHAZAM!"

As a footnote, there are some interesting possible clues to the movie visible. We don't know for sure if that tunic Johnson is wearing is costume or is hiding/protecting his costume, but a couple of other actors are wearing what could be some kind of fantasy/sci-fi outfits that could be Kryptonian, for all I know. The background is a cyclorama of a cloudy sky with patches of bright white clouds popping up randomly. The actors have cables attached to their back, so this may have been a flying scene. Many of the crew are wearing Hawaiian shirts and leis. I don't know if that is because the scene is set in (or above)Hawai'i or if it was thee party theme of the day.