In news that admittedly didn’t come as all that much of a surprise given its lethargic performance at the box office, Dwayne Johnson’s long-awaited Black Adam appears to have escaped 15 years in development hell for the express purpose of bombing so hard it stands to lose up to $100 million, which is not a great look for DC Studios.
It also makes the star and producer seem a little silly for constantly reminding everyone that the hierarchy of power was about to change, only to take center stage in a critically-panned introduction to the titular antihero that’s poised to be plunged deeply into the red. He might be the biggest and most popular A-lister on the planet, but The Rock certainly isn’t bulletproof.
For years, the DC fandom has been in a perpetual state of civil war, with those content to look forward and embrace a new era of superhero stories often butting heads against the relentless supporters of the SnyderVerse. In a cruel twist of fate, none other than noted Henry Cavill detractor and regular Zack Snyder critic Grace Randolph shared a savage meme that went massively viral.
To the shock of absolutely nobody, the comments and replies quickly filled up with furious SnyderVerse supporters, who are either calling Randolph many unsavory things, or distancing themselves from Black Adam because it doesn’t jive with their version of what the franchise should be.
Could we have predicted this time last year that a global superstar headlining a $200 million epic set in cinema’s most consistently bankable genre would end up facing a potential nine-figure shortfall after leaving theaters? In a sad state of the DCU’s divisively inconsistent nature; yeah, we probably could.