Now this is interesting. In this interview, Dwayne Johnson reveals that he has been involved with the character of Black Adam and preparing for the role for “eight years.” That places the beginning of his relationship with the character right about the time that there were rumors circulating about him playing the hero of DC's movie about the character marketed under the trademark “Shazam!”, the original Captain Marvel.
What with the "Shazam!" movie announced to be released on April 5, 2019 (and there being a surprisingly well-informed and insightful article from Comic Book Resources), this seems like as good a time as ever the very briefly recap the history of this actor and this franchise.
Remember, there were lots of rumors going around back in those heady days of the mid '00's, as the whole superhero-movie thing was starting to heat up. "Shazam!" was being talked about as early as 2003, and was still a going concern as the decade progressed. No fewer than three
scripts were written or being worked on by folks such as William
Goldman and John August and at least two different directors were
attached to the project, Peter Segal being the latest. Jake Gyllenhaal
was at one time rumored to be playing the hero, but that proved to be
a hoax. Brandon Molale promoted himself for the role very heavily at
the time, there was even a MySpace (remember MySpace?) page and a fan
club pushing for it.
Back in '07 MTV Movie Blogs ran a poll.
Rumors were flying that Dwayne Johnson, then more popularly known as
the pro wrestler “The Rock,” would be playing Captain Marvel.
Johnson even came forth and said that people were talking to him
about being in the upcoming “Shazam!” movie (this was before the
“New 52” reboot in which the hero trademarked under the label
“Shazam!” now actually goes by that name). A lot of people,
however thought that he would be even better as Black Adam, the evil
version of the World's Mightiest Mortal from the Middle East 5,000
years ago who had become the toughest bad guy in the DC universe).
Some said this for racial reasons (the Big Red Cheese has always been
depicted as Caucasian, and Johnson is a black-Samoan mix), and some
just would rather see him as the Bad Guy. Johnson has played a
villainous Middle-Eastern monarch before (as the Scorpion King in
“The Mummy Returns”), so why not?
So Johnson and MTV Blogs put the
question to the fans: who would you rather see Johnson as: Captain
Marvel or Black Adam?
(http://www.mtv.com/news/1570423/the-rocks-role-in-shazam-should-he-be-good-or-evil-you-decide/
http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2007/09/24/weigh-in-who-should-the-rock-play-in-shazam/)
The answer was overwhelming: Black Adam, by 86% of the vote.
So Johnson humbly and good naturedly
accepted the fans' verdict, admitted that he did not know much about
the character, and said he would be happy to talk with the filmmakers
about playing the role
(http://www.mtv.com/news/1573336/the-rock-put-his-shazam-role-to-a-vote-and-the-results-are-evil/
http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2007/09/24/weigh-in-who-should-the-rock-play-in-shazam/).
In the succeeding months, dedicated fans of the World's Mightiest
Mortal were watching every move by Johnson and Peter Segal to see if
they could get a hint of what the movie, and Johnson's performance
and chemistry with Segal, would be like. Segal's “Get Smart” got
particular attention, being as it was a comedy/action movie involving
both of these people.
Interestingly, Michael Uslan, the
producer of the Shazam! Project and longtime fan of the hero, told me
that he had not heard about this. So either Johnson was making it up
about talking to people about this, someone wasn't telling Uslan what
was going on, or Uslan had a reason to keep some things on the
downlow.
But by 2010 news and activity about
the project had slowed down, and by the time of this interview
(http://splashpage.mtv.com/2010/01/12/dwayne-the-rock-johnson-on-shazam-status-and-black-adam/,
and this report of it
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/markcassidycbm/news/?a=13722)
it was pretty much dead.
In late 2014, however, Johnson started
dropping hints that he would be in a superhero movie. By this time
the “clickbait” phenomena was in full swing, and every
psuedo-news website and geek-fanboy blogger with pretensions to
journalistic credibility and the need for hit counts ran with the
story, despite the dearth of information about the project and
sometimes embarrassing lack of knowledge of the character (this
alleged “investigation” from Entertainment Weekly, for instance, gets remarkable
mileage out of speculation and groundless “insight.” And their
conclusion turned out to be incorrect.
http://www.ew.com/article/2014/08/19/dwayne-johnson-shazam-rock-black-adam).
Dwayne Johnson speaks authoritatively
about the character and about superhero mythology these days. He
refers to BA as an “anti-hero” who used to be a slave and at one
point says that superheroes are usually “born into” greatness.
This reveals a shallow surfaceness of his research. The bit about BA
having been a slave is very recent in the development of his
character, and there are plenty of famous superheroes who were not
“born in to greatness” (Superman and Wonder Woman were, for sure,
but Spider-Man, Captain America, and the original Captain Marvel
himself, for instance, were not). Kudos to Johnson, however, for at
least trying to give the impression of comic book super-characters as
being something worth taking seriously.
Johnson is also very conscientiously
maintaining the party line about the name of the hero. I have yet to
hear him utter the name “Captain Marvel” in his interviews since
he started with the hints and intimations in 2014. While he did say
“Captain Marvel” in interviews back in 2007, he is showing
himself a team player and professional spokesperson by staying up to
date with the marketing of the hero of the Shazam franchise.
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