Dwayne Johnson doesn't understand why Black Adam 2 was cancelled
Black Adam was famously billed by Dwayne Johnson as "the hierarchy of power in the DC universe is about to change" and in a sense he was right.
James Gunn and Peter Safran took over the creative direction of the comic book movies, and while the success of The Batman means Robert Pattinson will continue to play his superhero, the poor box office performance of Black Adam means that Dwayne Johnson will not.
On Kevin Hart's show Hart to Heart (via The Hollywood Reporter), Johnson expressed his frustrations with the situation, stating: "Black Adam got caught in a vortex of new leadership. And at that time, as we were creating Black Adam, developing it, shooting Black Adam… it was so many changes in leadership.
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"As you know, anytime you have a company, but especially that size and magnitude that's a publicly traded company, and you have all those changes in leadership, you have people coming in who, creatively and fiscally, are going to make decisions that you may not agree with."
One of those decisions was to not go ahead with the sequel, something that Johnson said "will always be one of the biggest mysteries" to him.
"You have the biggest opening of your career," he noted, referring to himself. "Sure, no China, that could've been maybe 100, maybe 200 million more dollars. You're establishing a new superhero and you want to grow out the franchise. You bring back Superman and Henry Cavill – the world went crazy. We created a diverse superhero portfolio, where we have just men and women of color in Black Adam 2 as well."
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While Black Adam may have had a strong opening, it quickly hit a brick wall in terms of box office and crashed out at less than $400 million worldwide amid bad reviews.
Not only is a Black Adam sequel not happening, but Henry Cavill's Superman return isn't either, as the role has been recast for Gunn's new vision. Johnson has said he's had meetings with current DC bosses to see if the character can ever appear in the future, but it doesn't feel like it'll happen any time soon.
Black Adam can be streamed on NOW and Sky Go in the UK, and on Max in the US.
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