Film box office failure Black Adams Last fall, it happened just as James Gunn and Peter Safran took over as presidents of the newborn DC Studios.
In an excerpt from the show heart to heart about Peacock, Kevin Hart asked the protagonist Duane Johnson to give a clear picture of what happened and the reasons why his film did not become the springboard for a new franchise, as it initially seemed:
I think Black Adam is in the middle of a new leadership. (…) I think it’s one of those films that got tangled up in this change of leadership. At the time we were making the film, we developed it, we filmed it, we got a bit stuck on Covid… Every time in a company, a public company, management changes so many times, there will be new people who will make creative and financial decisions with whom you may disagree because they have a different philosophy than yours. I think Black Adam is one of those movies that got caught up in this leadership change. And this will always remain one of the biggest mysteries, I think, not only for me and for our fans, but for our entire industry. It was a question that both Wall Street and Hollywood were asking themselves… Everyone was wondering why, despite the best box office debut of my career (okay, there was no China, but it would add perhaps only 100 or 200 million dollars), despite the fact that we launched a new superhero with the goal of creating a new franchise, despite the fact that we managed to bring Henry Cavill back to the screen as Superman … In addition, we created a new portfolio of very diverse superheroes …
(…) As business oriented people, you and I, who always think that “you should put the public first”, yes, we look at and respect the economic result, but we also think about opportunity and creating opportunities and original things and new for our audience – who are our real bosses. When you realize that things aren’t viewed from that perspective, for guys like you and me, things get a little more complicated…
Worthing around $200 million, Black Adam grossed $67 in its opening weekend in the US and then ended its run at just under $400 million worldwide.
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