Back in October of 2018, the movie Venom broke box office records in October with an $80 million opening weekend. Now it looks like the upcoming Black Adam is trending toward those numbers as well.
The numbers, revealed by The Hollywood Reporter, would give star Dwayne Johnson the biggest opening numbers of his career (not counting the Fast & Furious franchise). Right now, it’s tracking between $70 and $75 million, but that could change.
It’s also possible that analysts are being conservative as the industry rebounds from two years of COVID restrictions. Black Adam has a lot of things going for it. It’s an antihero story and not necessarily a marquee superhero name, so there’s room to really do anything with the character.
It also looks really good, with a trailer that’s so far garnered more than 18 million views.
In fact, it’s a real chance for the DCEU to expand into a new direction besides the Justice League cadre of well-known superheroes. Black Adam is directed by Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra, who previously worked with Johnson on that movie.
The movie’s also going to introduce a superhero team that hasn’t been featured in the DCEU just yet: the Justice Society of America. That particular team includes Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo), Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) and Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell).
New Line/Warner Bros. has been heavily promoting the movie on NFL games and Johnson himself visited SoFi Stadium during a recent Los Angeles Rams-Buffalo Bills game to promote it as well. He also went to Comic-Con in July.
Black Adam smashes into theaters on Oct. 21.