Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson vowed to change the “hierarchy of power” within the DCEU with 2022’s Black Adam. The movie was meant to be a fan-pleasing blockbuster which launched a new version of this shared world that, in Johnson’s eyes, revolved around his anti-hero.
He reportedly went behind the backs of executives to bring Henry Cavill back as Superman, refused to share the screen with Zachary Levi’s Shazam, and hoped to launch everything from a Justice Society movie to Hawkman as part of a slate he and Seven Bucks Productions would oversee.
Black Adam proved to be a mess of a movie with murky visuals and hit-and-miss CGI. Crucially, box office numbers weren’t good, reviews were even worse, and Johnson soured people on this already struggling franchise enough to impact 2023’s DCEU titles negatively.
Warner Bros. Games recently released MultiVersus, a free-to-play crossover fighting game which pits the studio’s many characters against each other.
Black Adam is among the characters you can play as and, if you pit him against The Joker (or at least The Batman Who Laughs version), the villain will take a shot at The Rock’s repeated promise to shake up the DCEU’s hierarchy of power.
Johnson endlessly vowed that would be the case in interviews and social media posts and legitimately seemed to believe Black Adam would be a game-changer. He was also convinced that fans were desperate to see a movie revolving around his character and Henry Cavill’s Superman squaring off…without Shazam, of course.
Check out the MultiVersus clip below.
The X user who shared the clip also shared a compelling theory about why the game’s developers decided to poke fun at the Hollywood A-Lister and pro wrestler.
In ancient Kahndaq, the slave Teth Adam was gifted the almighty powers of the gods. But he used those powers for vengeance and was imprisoned. Now, 5,000 years later, he is freed and once again wields his dark sense of justice onto the world. Refusing to surrender, Teth Adam is challenged by a team of modern-day heroes known as the Justice Society—Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Atom Smasher and Cyclone—who seek to return him to eternal captivity.
Dwayne Johnson stars alongside Aldis Hodge as Hawkman, Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone, Mohammed Amer, Bodhi Sabongui, and Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate.
Black Adam is available wherever you get your movies.