Dwayne Johnson doesn’t want to see it, but after Black Adam he’s in the biggest crisis of his career

For former wrestler Dwayne Johnson, movies are sports and athletic success is measured in numbers. When a Dwayne Johnson film hits theaters, it proclaims what has been achieved records gladly on his social channels. That can also be the best 4th weekend after the start of the cinema since the corona pandemic in a March with unusually high humidity. The main thing is any record.

How Dwayne Johnson behaves when it not to announce any records there, we could experience that in the last few days. The DC superhero film Black Adam, starring Johnson, has been in theaters since October. An American entertainment website dared to compare Black Adam’s earnings with those of the MCU entry Black Panther 2. Johnson reacted soured, as if someone had spat in his protein shake.

Black Adam is a massive defeat for Dwayne Johnson

The The Rock pride is going through its meltdown. After the important first 3 weeks, the DC blockbuster had a worldwide gross of 320 million US dollars, Wakanda Forever made 546 million in 2 weeks.

With a budget of just under $200 million plus marketing costs (between $150 and $200 million), Black Adam will only just be in the black, if at all. one Star, who largely defines himself through box office results, that should make you think. However, The Rock pretended to send a Ferrari (Wakanda Forever) into a race with a Twingo (Black Adam) here: “We are babies and need to grow :-)”.

He made his own film small and thus distracted from a question that was raised after Black Adam at the latest: Just how popular is movie star Dwayne Johnson really?

The expectations of Black Adam and Dwayne Johnson were (too) high

In this era of blockbuster cinema, brands and characters are more important than the stars who embody them. Franchises like Fast and Furious and the MCU draw viewers in more than Chris Hemsworth, Charlie Hunnam, or Daisy Ridley. One of the few contemporary stars for whom that rule didn’t seem to apply: Dwayne Johnson. He pumped the Fast series and the Jumanji brand to blockbuster size, with films like Skyscraper and San Andreas consistently making profits with him starring.

The expectations of Black Adam were therefore high: Johnson emphasized the power of his blockbuster like a mantra beforehand. One of the biggest film stars of our time merged with the most promising branch of film today, the superhero genre. Black Adam potentiated powersas if the German long jumper Malaika Mihambo would start a record attempt on the moon.

The Rock wanted to reorganize the DCEU’s hierarchy – of course, Black Adam should be at the top, ahead of Wonder Woman and Batman. But also in one internal DC comparison, the Black Adam debut looks rather pathetic out. Gal Gadot’s first film made $435 million worldwide in 2 weeks under similar conditions in 2017. Robert Pattinson’s The Batman hit $600 million in 3 weeks this year. Black Adam is more in league with the much cheaper DC comedy Shazam!, which totaled 366 million in 2019.

What does this mean for Dwayne Johnson? Precisely because the conditions for a billion-dollar hit were supposedly never more favorable, Black Adam’s failure shook The Rock’s rock violently. He had wobbled before.

Black Adam continues a negative The Rock trend

In fact, Dwayne Johnson has been waiting for a big hit in cinemas for 3 years now. We can confidently exclude Red Notice. The streaming blockbuster broke view records in 2021, but small films like Purple Hearts also manage it on Netflix.

Jumanji: The Next Level grossed nearly $800 million in 2019, the year before the pandemic, and the adventure franchise renewal is one of rock’s brightest stories. After that, the Colossus released two weak cinema blockbusters in a row: Black Adam last month and Jungle Cruise a year ago. Jaume Collet-Serra’s action-adventure is Johnson’s worst blockbuster flop to date, with a $200 million production budget and just $220 million at the box office.

The attempt to tie in with family-friendly action films like Central Intelligence, Skyscraper, Rampage and San Andreas failed even before the apparently safe number Black Adam. Except for Jumanji, none of the Johnson blockbusters of the last 10 years received a sequel, despite a number of promises – whether Baywatch, San Andreas, Rampage, Skyscraper or Hobbs & Shaw. The elaborate fast spin-off played significantly less than the two parts of the franchise before. If Black Adam weren’t part of the DC universe, a sequel would be almost impossible.

One can find explanations for all of this. While Hobbs and Shaw is part of the Fast Universe, it is ultimately not part of the main series. Jungle Cruise launched in the middle of the pandemic and was released on Disney+ at the same time. And Black Adam just isn’t a particularly good movie, which never helps. In addition, the Chinese cinema market, which was important for Dwayne Johnson, collapsed. Movies like Rampage and Skyscraper have grossed more there than in Johnson’s homeland. No China, no Rampage 2.

But when you have to explain so many problems, you are usually already in the middle of a crisis. In sum, the image of the crumbling box-office rock remains, and that had a noticeable impact on Black Adam.

What Henry Cavill’s Superman Performance Reveals About Dwayne Johnson’s Career Low

Even before Black Adam, Warner and DC recognized that Dwayne Johnson’s charisma was no longer enough to carry even a superhero blockbuster with a franchise connection and a huge budget. The studio frantically whipped up a performance by Henry Cavill as Superman to give Black Adam more momentum at the box office.

Another star’s cameo as a stimulant: For Dwayne Johnson, who once earned the franchise Viagra attribution, a humiliation. The Henry Cavill coup says more about Dwayne Johnson’s current career than box-office results ever could: He’s just one of many and the same forces at the mercy of everyone else. A normal star.

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