With Warner/DC having a lot of dates to fill until 2020, it would make perfect sense to make a Shazam movie. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's name has been mentioned quite a few times in DC for years now. Finally, the WWE star has made it official, locking down a deal with Warner to play the villain-turned-antihero Black Adam in Shazam.
Black Adam, a dark wizard the nemesis of hero Shazam, in recent comic books has been on a path to change to become more of an anti-hero rather than a villain. Adam also gets his powers from the same source as Shazam, and is also a ruler of a small Middle Eastern nation called Khandaq, which will appear in the coming issues of Arrow comic book.
The Rock confirmed the news posting a message on his Twitter account captioned:
"Kneel at his feet or get crushed by his boot." My honor to become.. #BlackAdam #TheAntiHero #DCComics
Darren Lemke is on scriptwriting duties while Hiram Garcia and Dwayne himself are on board as producers.
Toby Emmerich, President and COO of New Line said:
"We Love Dwayne and have had nothing but success with him over the years,"
"When I look at Dwayne both off screen and on screen, he is such a larger than life character and it just made perfect sense to me that we put him in a DC comic movie. You look at these comic book characters and they have this certain swag and charisma that Dwayne carries with him where ever he is so that's why this always made sense."
Shazam follows the story of Billy Batson, who can turn to the hero known as Captain Marvel by saying the word "Shazam!" which gives him powers from six mythological gods.
DC's Shazam movie will come out in theaters in 2019.
Sources: comicbook.com, Empire, variety.com
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