The Rock Confirmed as Black Adam in Shazam Movie; Movie To Stand Apart From DC Universe?

Shazam / Black Adam

Shazam is a weird comic and it’s being turned into a movie. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been teasing his involvement in that movie for some time and finally made an announcement the other day.

Here’s the tweet in question from the man himself:

For those of you who don’t know, Billy Batson is a boy who when he says the magical word “Shazam” he turns into the superhero of the same name (which is an acronym for the names of the heroic figures whose powers he inherits: Solomon (wisdom), Hercules (strength), Atlas (stamina), Zeus (power), Achilles (courage), and Mercury (speed)). Billy is just a kid and when he says the word he turns into superman basically.

Black Adam was the first guy to have this power centuries ago and he went bad. And then good and then bad. And then evil. And then good again. And then…. well you get the idea.

The hashtag “antihero” makes it pretty clear the movie will be some kinda redemption story for Black Adam, which also opens up all kinds of weirdness that goes along with these characters.

Also worth noting is that _Shazam_ is being produced by New Line, a separate division of Warner and that the [producers say will have a separate tone from the DC films, and be fun](http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/09/03/shazam-movie-rock-fun/) (which the DC films may or may not have banned from their storytelling) leading many, including myself, to speculate that Shazam will not be part of the Justice League franchise and rather be something unto itself.

I kind of like that because the grim and gritty tone that DC seems to be shooting for with the rest of their films doesn’t really fit a story where a child says a magic word and becomes an ancient hero.

_Side note: yes this is slightly old news but you may have noticed that I’m doing a bit of catch up at the moment after being unavailable for a while._