The Rock had a strategy. He envisioned Black Adam, a DC movie, as the beginning of a new chapter in the DC Universe that would eventually pit his godlike warrior against Henry Cavill’s Superman. Dwayne Johnson and his crew at Seven Bucks Productions laboured arduously to cast Cavill as Black Adam in a post-credits sequence in order to achieve this. Plans only shifted. After taking over for the previous DC administration at Warner Bros., James Gunn and Peter Safran made the decision to recast Superman for the next DC movie Superman: Legacy. Cavill was left in the cold as a result, and The Rock was questioned about it on the red carpet for the Oscars on Sunday. What he said was as follows:
According to Dwayne Johnson, who was questioned by Variety (via Brandon Davis at ComicBook) regarding what transpired with Henry Cavill, the only aspect of Black Adam that he and his team had control over was the film’s quality and, ideally, the creation of a plot that fans would be interested in following. The Rock asserts that their audience score was in the nineties; nonetheless, he acknowledges that the film received a lot of criticism and that as a result, the critics were unable to continue. Their audience score is 88% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
The bigger issue is that the previous leadership at Warner Bros. permitted Henry Cavill to publicly declare in a video to his followers that he was once again Superman and that he was thrilled to carry on telling tales as DC’s main hero. It was encouraging for Cavill and his supporters. When it wasn’t.
The Rock, though, didn’t stop there. He criticised James Gunn without directly naming him, but did so by using an appropriate sports analogy, which is unfortunate for fans of Black Adam. According to how he portrayed it, their team was taken over by a new owner. Also, even though the quarterback and coach who were already in place had achieved success (though Rock exaggerates the degree of accomplishment), the new “owners” Gunn and Safran decided to stick with Superman.
