“I had a great meeting with David Zaslav, myself and my longtime business partner Dany Garcia,” Johnson said
Dwayne Johnson and his massive ego can’t seem to take the L on Black Adam and is again attempting to spin his own narrative about his future at Warner Bros Discovery and DC.
Johnson appeared on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, and tried to shoot down a recent report from Variety when asked by CNBC host Morgan Brennan that Johnson pitched “a multiyear plan for Black Adam” that apparently “ruffled feathers internally.”
“That is simply not true,” Johnson said. “I had a great meeting with David Zaslav, myself and my longtime business partner Dany Garcia. Her and myself went in, we sat with David, and we did not pitch a ten-year plan at all. What our meeting was the future and how can we build across the entire platform of Warner bros. and Discovery.”
Sounds like semantics. The future and and a so called multiyear plan sound very similar. Johnson went on to talk about the challenges about not engaging “in the sludge of media reporting.”
Johnson added: “You know, I gotta tell you Morgan and David, one of the hardest things that I’ve had to do – and it’s one of the greater disciplines that we have to practice when we’re in this position – is you want to be careful how much you get pulled into the sludge of media reporting.”
“Now, that’s not an overall criticism. but you do want to be careful about it. So it was very difficult – wait, let me rephrase that – it was challenging to exercise that kind of discipline. Just to let these reports come out,” Johnson said.
Watch the embed below. The part with Johnson pertaining to DC starts at around 10:30.
Previously, Johnson said that Black Adam won’t be part of the first chapter of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Universe. However, Johnson says that there is an opening for the character to return thanks to the vast storytelling opportunities of the multiverse. More spin. The Rock broke the news on his social media pages, following a recent discussion with Gunn.
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Black Adam has been dominating the HBO MAX streaming charts for weeks now, but the movie had a disappointing run at the worldwide box office, earning $390 million against a massive $260 million production budget. For what it is worth, it’s currently the top ranking title on WarnerMedia’s HBO Max and Fandango’s on-demand streaming service Vudu.
Jaume Collet-Serra was working from a script by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani, with a cast that also included Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindell, Bodhi Sabongui and Pierce Brosnan. The movie marked the big screen debuts of Black Adam and the Justice Society of America, one of the most popular superhero teams in the pages of DC Comics.
Dwayne Johnson had been trying to get Black Adam off the ground for years now, but the movie was released right before a massive DC Universe shake-up at Warner Bros. Discovery, which saw Walter Hamada exiting his post as the president of DC Films. Hadama is now at Paramount Pictures, overseeing all things horrror.
The Black Adam news won’t come as a surprise to many, as Gunn recently announced that Henry Cavill is no longer attached to the role of Superman, something that has led many to believe that the DC Universe is being rebooted. Gunn is currently writing the script for the next Superman movie, which is expected to feature a new actor as a younger version of the DC Comics icon.
A recent article from The Hollywood Reporter called Henry Cavill “a pawn in [Johnson]’s failed attempt to control a piece of DC.” The Rock had his own plans for Superman, with the wrestler-turned-actor at one point teasing a showdown between the Man of Steel and his anti-hero Black Adam. Superman was most recently seen in the post-credits scene of Black Adam.
