DWAYNE JOHNSON'S BLACK ADAM GETS A SHAZAM SPINOFF!!

We still don’t have a release date for the DC Comics adaptation Shazam, but the earliest we might see it is probably sometime in 2019. We also don’t know who will direct Shazam, or who will play the two heroic leads, young boy Billy Batson and his adult superhero alter ego, Shazam (AKA Captain Marvel, but Marvel owns the title rights to that name).

Despite all those unknowns, there is one cast member that we’ve known about for years now, and his attachment continues to arguably overshadow Shazam himself. Dwayne Johnson has been attached to star in Shazam since 2014 as the villain (and/or “anti-hero”, depending upon your perspective) Black Adam, an ancient Egyptian who basically has the same powers as Shazam. 

This week, we learned that New Line Cinema and DC Entertainment have now started development on a Black Adam spinoff movie, with Dwayne Johnson (unsurprisingly) attached to reprise the character. Presumably, the Black Adam movie will remain a “spinoff,” and won’t end up being released before the Shazam movie does, but considering the lack of non-Black-Adam information known about Shazam, one has to wonder. It’s also worth noting the similarities between Black Adam (created in 1945) and Apocalypse, the X-Men villain introduced in 1986 who is also an ancient Egyptian with god-like powers.