Wait—The Rock got the DC movies canceled?
If this is true, actor Dwayne Johnson tried working behind the scenes with his Black Adam movie
And his schemes to run the show made the whole DC movie series come crashing down…
So, Marvel Comics has a movie series that we call the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). And it’s been a huge ongoing event. Even with its recent troubles, it’s still huge.
Now, the also-ran comic book company DC Comics tried their equivalent—the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). For a short number of years—starting in 2013—the DCEU put out a few movies, but their work was more shaky.
And, eventually, the owners at Warner Bros. decided to just cancel that series of movies. And press the restart button.
(Granted, DC Comics has a long history of pressing a restart button. Just saying.)
But even as the brand-new DC movie series has (official) started with their recent 2025 Superman movie, there was a recent story that came out regarding why the previous movie series collapsed.
One of the questionable movies from the DCEU was 2022’s Black Adam, starring Dwayne Johnson AKA “The Rock” as the supervillain title character. Based on the DC Comics character who is a bad guy from the Shazam AKA Captain Marvel (long story) comic book.
Which should have meant that the Black Adam movie should have been a spinoff of the Shazam movies. But, according to this video, there are reasons that the movie shrugged off its connection to those movies. And those behind-the-scenes reasons actually involve Johnson moving around a lot of chairs backstage. And led to some of why Warner Bros. shrugged it off and said, “Let’s start these movies over.”
From All Things Considered:
Black Adam was marketed as the film that would “change the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe,” but behind the scenes Dwayne Johnson was attempting a full-blown takeover of the DCEU—pushing a future showdown with Henry Cavill’s Superman, sidelining Shazam, and positioning Black Adam as the franchise’s new final boss…
How Black Adam Tried to Take Over DC
Want to meet some Sword & Sorcery writers? We’re working on a list with several authors who have explored their own takes on Sword & Sorcery fiction.