Trivia / Black Adam (2022)

• Acting for Two: Marwan Kenzari played both Ishmael/Sabbac and his ancestor King Ahk-Ton.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Dwayne Johnson has wanted to play Black Adam for a long time (since 2007 at the very least) and never gave up on this passion project. The prospect of having the chance of pitting him against Henry Cavill's Superman one day also appealed a lot to him.
• Billing Displacement: Noah Centineo is billed before Sarah Shahi despite the latter having a more significant role in the film. Shahi is also billed after Aldis Hodge (who was billed second), but al least Hodge plays a known DC superhero and has more or less equal screen time as her.
• Box Office Bomb: One of a string of them for the DCEU, the film is estimated to have lost $50-100 million. The film managed to gross roughly $395 million which is the highest grossing DCEU movie since Aquaman (2018) and WB’s fourth highest grosser post COVID-19.^note  Behind Barbie (2023), The Batman (2022), and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore However, its budget ended up ballooning to $260 million which left it in a hole it couldn’t get out of.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub, the Intergang squad leader is voiced by NJPW wrestler Kazuchika Okada.
• Content Leak: The Stinger was leaked online a week before the official opening on October 14th.
• The Danza: In the Brazilian dub, Adrianna Tomaz is voiced by Adriana Torres.
• Divorced Installment: A rather curious example. Black Adam was originally set to be the primary antagonist of a Captain Marvel / Shazam film, but Dwayne Johnson's clout in Hollywood rose significantly (he was originally cast in 2007) to where he was able to split the character off from just a Billy Batson-foe. Adam was referenced as a character in SHAZAM! (2019) and features Djimon Hounsou as The Wizard in a cameo, but Adam is otherwise portrayed as a distinctive character within the Shared Universe setting.
• Dueling Works: With Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, since fact both films released a few weeks apart from each other and are set in rival franchises. They also both focus on grand fictional cities in Africa, feature a wide range of supporting characters, and are both centered around violent, anti-heroic characters ruling over said fictional cities while being revered as living gods (with Wakanda Forever featuring Namor).
• Executive Veto: Stargirl was originally planned to be in the movie as part of the Justice Society's lineup, but executive producer Geoff Johns requested that they use Cyclone as a replacement instead, due to Stargirl being the focus of a show that he was working on.
• Fake Nationality: Dwayne Johnson, who is of Samoan American and Black Canadian descent, plays a West Asian character (its analogue, at least).
• Release Date Change: The film was pulled from its original December 22, 2021 release date due to COVID-19 Pandemic-induced production delays and Warner Bros.' release schedule shuffles, and was moved to July 29, 2022. Then in March 2022 the film was delayed to October 21 with the studio citing "production delays" as the reason. DC League of Super-Pets (another DC movie starring The Rock) took over the July date.
• Role Reprise:
  • Dwayne Johnson voiced Black Adam (and his dog) a few months earlier in the Post-Credits Scene of DC League of Super-Pets.
  • In The Stinger of this movie, Henry Cavill appears for the first time in a new DC production in five years after Justice League, and one year after the director's cut of that film, which used previously-unseen footage from that production and Stock Footage for additional scenes. He then announced his return for more DC film projects...only for James Gunn to take over DC Studios with the intent of a full-on Continuity Reboot.
• Saved from Development Hell: Dwayne Johnson was cast as Black Adam as far back as November 2007. The Black Adam film started principal photography in April 2021. Massive props have to be given to Johnson for not having given up all this time.
• Teasing Creator:
  • Dwayne Johnson strongly advocated for doing a crossover where his iteration of Black Adam meets (or fights) Superman, but he danced around whether or not it could happen in some form in this movie. He also notably was unwilling to state if Henry Cavill would be playing the Superman he would go up against. Close to the release of the film, he kept teasing the possible involvement of Superman quite frequently in the movie without outright saying it. Which, unsurprisingly, resulted in a mid-credits cameo. Warner Brothers pretty much all but spoiled it themselves in the marketing for the film.
  • At the UK premier, Sarah Shahi wore a white dress with gold accessories, which bears a passing resemblance to Isis◊.
• Trolling Creator: One of the TV spots features a scene where Black Adam and Hawkman fight in a room containing artwork of the Justice League, with Aquaman and the Flash being showcased... And Superman's face is seen burned off before we can get a look at it, serving as a nod to the behind-the-scenes difficulty over getting Henry Cavill signed on for new movies. Superman's face was deliberately obscured in scenes where he is otherwise present, in both SHAZAM and Peacemaker, to the frustration of fans. In the film, this ends up being a set-up for his eventual appearance at the end of the film.
• Wag the Director: The entire Superman cameo situation was said to have been the result of Dwayne Johnson using his clout as a movie star to pull it off.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Alexander Skarsgård was considered for the role of Hawkman before the casting of Aldis Hodge.
  • Fady Elsayed was cast to play a unspecified part in the film, but restrictions due to the COVID-19 Pandemic prevented him from filming.
  • Earlier drafts of the script featured Stargirl as a member of the JSA. She was written out and replaced with Cyclone to avoid potential confusion with the Stargirl series (despite The Multiverse being announced as the direction live-action DC media would be taking at DC Fandome in 2020, though it could also be because of a veto by her creator, Geoff Johns).
  • According to Dwayne Johnson himself, Hawkgirl was originally going to be one of the Justice Society of America members featured in the film, but complications behind the scenes led to her being removed in subsequent rewrites.
  • Eclipso was meant to be the villain Black Adam was to face, and in the concept reel a glowing diamond (Eclipso's prison) could be seen next to Adam's face, framing it in shadow. He was removed and replaced with SABBAC.
  • The Superman cameo was initially shot with a faceless stand-in, like the character's previous appearances in Shazam and Peacemaker. However, when a last minute deal with Henry Cavill was reached, the scene was reshot to show the character's face.
  • Another post credits scene was filmed to hint at the future of Doctor Fate after Kent Nelson's Heroic Sacrifice, but it was cut. However, both Jaune Collet-Serra, Pierce Brosnan, and Dwayne Johnson implied that Kent could somehow return in the future.
  • The original plan for the post-credits scene was a cameo appearance from Zachary Levi as Shazam!, who would’ve been recruited by Hawkman to join the JSA. The cameo was vetoed by Dwayne Johnson.
• You Sound Familiar: In European French, Emmanuel Jacomy (Pierce Brosnan's James Bond voice among others) voiced Kent Nelson/Doctor Fate. He previously dubbed Jor-El (Russell Crowe) in the Zack Snyder movies involving Superman.

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