Another major issue with Johnson's ego is that he doesn't want his characters to show any vulnerability. How are we supposed to feel urgency and tension in the action scenes with a character who's pretty much invincible?

The problem with the Rock is that he always plays the same character in all of his movies and is never 3 dimensional

I love how there was a part where Black Adam has to fight a bunch of soldiers without his powers, a scene that's pretty much gift-wrapped to show your main character be vulnerable and get knocked down, but because Dwayne Johnson is *so* against appearing weak on screen, even Black Adam's smaller, de-powered human form tears through bad guys like John Wick. He's getting smacked with rifle butts, getting shot and just shrugging it off. Even when he's in his smaller, powerless form, the Rock still has to be the strongest guy in the room.

It's crazy how Dr. Fate was in this and wasn't able to just move Black Adam to a parallel dimension where they could just discuss the issues they were having with him with the threat of leaving him there if they didn't come to some kind of arrangement. I mean you add Dr. Fate you've won the fight, there is no fight. That's it done.

The only thing I think this video gets wrong is implying that you need to showcase a hero's most iconic villain in their first movie. The Dark Knight is a perfect example of being able to save a villain for the second movie AFTER the character has already been established, as a lot of the first movie (When it's an origin story) is about the character trying to learn what they can do which ultimately takes away from the villain.

Man, this movie felt like it was locked up from 2007. The black Adam flashbacks looked exactly like the movie 300. 🙃

one of the problems of the Rock is that he wants to be the center of it all

WB/DC has built an interconnected universe before, it's called the DC Animated Universe, and it's fantastic. And they didn't even plan it out, they had no idea if their shows would get renewed, all the continuity and story arcs were done on the fly.

I actually enjoyed Pierce Brosnan in the movie it's just a pity about the rest of it.

Dwayne 'Rock' Johnson wanted the hierarchy of the DC Universe to really change and he did it by flopping Black Adam hard so we can get new heads of DCU, Peter Safran and James Gunn. I love this man so much

I felt Black Adam was written like an elementary schooler wrote him. "Let's make him blow every thing up in a million miles, no a bazillion million miles, unlike most super pusses let make him kill. Murder for sake of murder, it's so mature."

The Rock's ego finally got the better of him, and it sadly killed an entire movie universe.

Dwayne Johnson’s ego killed his plans for the DCEU’s future. He definitely wanted to be the Kevin Feige of DC.

I still love when horror directors make superhero movies

The fact that they are gonna keep Ezra Miller but cut the rest is absolutely insane.

A Magneto solo movie sounds badass.

The Rock is everywhere and nowhere all at once... Seeing him in so many movies is starting to disable my suspension of disbelief

If this film had been made 10-15 years ago it would have been great. Recall thinking about how I've already seen all these action scenes 50 times. Too late DC! Awesome vid Nerdstalgic!!

it was 50/50 for me with this flick. didnt suck just wasn't anything to talk about after leaving

The problem with Dwayne is he is always playing The Rock. He has maybe two movies that are good where he is the lead. Thats a lot of misses. It might be interesting to see him actually act and not just wink at the audience for 90 minutes.

"75 miles away" - When they didn't show the father's face in the opening, everybody knew what was going on... so predictably! 😂😂😂

Hawkman: "Heroes don't kill people." Black Adam: "I do." Superman: "So do I." Batman: "Me too." Wonder Woman: "I've killed so many people it's not even funny."

2:11 There, that’s why the movie failed. He thought he was above the story they were trying to tell originally. Yes, Dwayne is a mega-star now but as it has been said numerous times before, people don’t go to see these movies because of the actors involved - they go for the characters. Also, this is what you get when you let a (former) wrestler drive the creative direction of an IP he didn’t create. Like imagine if John Cena made all the creative decisions on Peacemaker.

I'm hoping James Gunn has a strong outline of how the DCU should be. If anything, he should've been working on DC from the beginning

I remember a time when big stars played the villains and no names played the heroes

Idk if it’s the final blow more than David Zaslav was. Black Adam just happened to be either too overhyped or badly timed in the DC overhaul.

Pierce Brosnan as Dr Fate was legit the best casting ever

So basically, the Rock refused to put Shazam over. That's never good for business and he should know.

I know they were kinda cheesy but I actually enjoyed the Justice Society in Black Adam 🙈 I thought they had good chemistry for the 4 seconds of screen time they got.

I’d like to see more of black Adam in a better written and directed film. And while the film disappointed it’s US box office was actually decent considering reviews and black Panther being close by

I think, with this movie, Dwayne has experienced his first "Will Smith in 'Wild Wild West" moment 😅 By this I mean that until this point in their careers, neither actor (or the people who supported them) thought that anything they appeared in would be nothing but a Huge Hit, and then the movie is released to poor ticket sales. That being said, I enjoyed the movie, and wouldn't mind seeing a sequel (with the promised but not never to happen Cavill Superman vs Black Adam).

Good stuff. I appreciate your production value and well rounded insight.

Actually, captain marvel's main villain was always Dr sivanna (although the movie version of sivanna was clearly modelled after Adam) Fawcetts version of black Adam was a one shot villain of the week. Otherwise the most recurring villain for captain marvel was sivanna. It wasn't until DC started using them that Adam was elevated to main villain status, and that didn't even last a year because DC started to flesh him out not long after, making him an anti hero by the mid 90s Imo the movie was mostly accurate to who black Adam is. It just had bad dialogue. And I gotta admit, Adam had to much "the rock" in him. I agree the rocks ego was the biggest problem. He was to much "hero" not enough "anti" I would've liked if Adam was allowed to be in Shazam. He could've challenged Billy's morals. Tho it would still need a main villain regardless, because black Adam really isn't one. He's the punisher with super powers

One of the only movies I walked out laughing…before it ended lol

I'm still waiting for them to treat Kryptonians like Saiyans. Say what you will about Man of Steel but those fights near the finale of the film, especially with Faora, made me wish for either a proper DBZ live action movie or that DC would just make movies with more fights like that.

Wait, a superhero film starring a no superhero failed because the Rock got too big for his britches? Big shocker there

Agreed with this up until you said Gunn and Safran won’t be putting money behind characters that aren’t all well known, Gunn has a history of taking unknown, weird, characters and giving them their own project/thriving them into beloved characters. GOTG for example, most of the characters from TSS, peacemaker. Black Adam didn’t “kill the DCEU” it came out a time where the DCEU was changing hands, I think Shazam, aqua man, blue beetle, the flash will probably all be a part of the new DCU, especially Aquaman and Shazam, Aquaman because Jason can play two characters if one is mostly cgi/ heavily made up and because Aquaman is the most successful of all the DCEU movies, it would be dumb to recast your most successful character, and Shazam because he’s kinda weird and James Gunn loves ts

I think Black Adam could have used the writing of Peacemaker. Yes, they had a tragic backstory and made villainous choices… but they grew to understand, regret, and heal.

I was always on The rock's side during the whole fast and furious drama, but I recent times I've realized that the rock only plays for himself You can't have that in a connected universe

As a fan of the DCEU, even I can acknowledge that they needed a clear plan of action. Something that was missing these past few years.

7:07 I missed the part where Iron Man held Thor’s hammer in Thor Ragnarok

I always love the chill background music of your videos

Dr Fate is young by magic power and is a main character by himself not an old dude who dies as a side piece

I actually enjoyed the movie didn't really see the twist coming actually personally would've been happy if we got to see more

Watching this film felt exhausting, the writing was horrible and never did I think "that was good". The film kept trying different stuff which didn't flow proper imo, from the constant inclusions of playing a popular song to the shootout. The child actor, hate to say it, has the worst acting and scenes I've seen. His lines are either bad to begin or they're poorly re-recorded and it sounds so obvious. I laughed twice at moments I wasn't supposed to because the timing or writing was so stupid. The Rock wanted Black Adam to be so strong and powerful that he has no emotion or reaction to literally ANYTHING happening to him, it's so uncompelling. That and along with the fact the Rock believes himself to be better than a Shazam character does almost everything to avoid using Shazam content for the dude whose literally EVIL SHAZAM. When the final fight is within the final 30 minutes you know it's bad, and it's so bad. The only good part of this film was Dr Fate, Hawkman was neat, but kept doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. But Dr Fate was cool, good design, well acted, his magic looked good and his moves where neat. Atom Smasher wasn't bad either.

I have long been saying that everything happening between DC and Marvel right now happened in the comics, just on a much smaller scale. For example, this is basically the DC Implosion all over again.

Unpopular opinion: while Dwayne Johnson seems like a fun guy off camera, he’s not a good actor, and most of his movies suck. On top of that, always having to win is so egotistical and kind of pathetic

I still find it hard to believe that The Rock is as big as he is. Not to take anything away from his hustle and hard working nature, but dang man! The dude can't act for s**t!

Nice to hear someone say The Rock had a big piece to do with this

I didn't see this movie, but like goddamn. THREE Egyptian heroes, and they didn't even use them together??? Did they not know what they were working with?!?!

A Batman Beyond with Michael Keaton sounds amazing...

A wrestler using backstage politics to undercut and hobble a planned storyline? I've never heard of such a thing!

My favorite part of the movie was when adam successfully overpowered fucking armed guards in his normal human form. I mentally checked out after that lmao

The hype for this movie lasted for one week 💀

I enjoyed Black significantly more than Disney Marvel's recent output.

I'm very excited for James Gunn's DCEU!

Why is The Rock never happy with just being The Rock? He always wants to be bigger... better... boulder

Hey. What programs do you use and how do you avoid copyright

Basically DCEU sounds like it's finally realized their plan for movies up until now for their characters hasn't worked as well as they hoped and are looking to do a complete reset on the entire thing. What comes next looks like they finally plan a DCU movie release modeled more like what Marvel did... individual movies to build characters, their stories and struggles, and connect the audience to the character before bringing multiple superhero's together in a single movie to something bigger needing them all to work together. I am disappointed Batman Beyond got dropped, but DC has needed this change for a long time now. I won't say all the DC movies have been bad, there are some great ones, but ultimately they've been lacking and banking on fans to gush and be hyped over a character just because they show up in the movie.

Black Adam felt like a B-movie with an A-movie budget

Best part of the film was seeing what the power of Shazam is like in the hands of someone both more experienced and unafraid to kill. It's an absolutely terrifying experience when remembering how last time we saw it, it was in the hands of a kid who used it more for parlor tricks.

I assume the 3 remaining DCEU movies will be released and I do hope so. They've gone through the trouble of making them before this end was announced and I feel like this universe has had some hitters. I love Peacemaker for one and I'm excited to see one more sequel for Shazam and Aquaman.

Seeing that Iron Man edit in Thor 3 made me gasp out loud rethinking everything LOL

Literally the Flash, Batman, and SUPERMAN are gone, of course it’s dead. DCEU was destined to fail from the start trying to be something they aren’t.

Henry cavill never getting a man of steel two: them going right to batman v superman will never not hurt me

The Rock wanted to be Black Adam but he didn't want anything to do with Shazam. He just wanted to beat Superman to feed his ego. It's a very self-serving project..

Here’s what they should’ve done. First, they should’ve made a Hawkman movie, an Atom Smasher movie, Cyclone Movie and also Doctor Fate movie to introduce the characters in the DCEU. Afterwards, they should’ve made a Justice Society of America movie. Then they should’ve made Black Adam afterwards. After that, black Adam could’ve made a cameo appearance in Shazam 2 which would’ve set up a Shazam vs Black Adam movie.

The dialogue was straight up, horrible. 😭

Dceu made me realize I like dc a lot just for Batman and wished he was in better material and I just want Batman to be separate from connected universes

I blame James Gunn for ruining everything after firing Cavill's Superman, making that Post-Credit scene completely pointless.

Can we start getting descriptions of the smooth jazzy musical numbers in the background? Really wanted to know the song playing towards the beginning of the video

Interesting take. You mentioned Iron Man and Robert Downey Jr’s cameos helping launch the Universe. But we hardly ever talk about Man of Steel. Since that was the first movie. We have to talk about what I’m some peoples eyes a a failure. At least the studio felt it was a failure because they gave up on the franchise and immediately pivoted to a Batman VS Superman sequel. They gave up on their on launch movie with a sequel starring DC’s biggest hero in Batman

Man of Steel and Wonder Woman did what they were supposed to do in building a universe. I think Batman V Superman was the misstep, that was on the road to being recovered until the director Zack Snyder's daughter passed away and he left the project. The fact the studio brought in Whedon who had a totally different tone to complete Justice League was the final letdown.

The Rock become a real life villain trying to avoid being a villain on screen 😂

We had a free weekend for a premium channel a few weeks ago. This film was on. We were sorta excited to get to see it. I'm not sure if we made it half way.

I had a ton of fun watching black adam. Yea the pacing was rushed, but still, fun. That makes it a better movie than most others that have come out recently.

People can still appreciate a villain role especially from someone like Rock who is ALWAYS the hero showing people your acting abilities and fun side

I really liked only two things there: backstory plot twist and hawkmans costume design. Before that I thought that "classic" hawkman suit is impossible to make look good in film.

The thing with The Rock is we've seen everything from him. He not only plays the exact same character all the time, he has been over exposed with how many movies star The Rock. People are sick and tired of seeing him. You would think he would learn his lessons after the "Die Rocky, Die" chants he got when he started out his career in wrestling. But see, he is now so famous and rich, he forgot that and just refuse to change, and now has become the John Cena of cinema where people are just bored of him and can see he is not the superhero he tries and portray himself, again, just like John Cena.

It could’ve worked with the Rock being a central character. If done right it could’ve been great. In the comics Black Adam gave his powers to the dc heroes to fight a major threat

I thought we all learnt of his big ego since booted out of the Fast & Furious franchise & went & try did his own....that's the Rock for you.

Funny that I don't see him as one of the "biggest movie stars". He's one of the most famous yes, but Dwayne has the acting range of a literal rock. I'm glad they are ending his paranoia, or at least it looks like they are trying to do that. Safran saved us from Batgirl and apparently called off Wonder Woman 3 as he realized how hated the second movie was and, given the losses of the last projects of DC, could perform even worse. I hope he makes everyone see that the route they were looking for as direct rivals of Marvel was going to completely sink them, movie producers and companies are already taking their bills to streaming platforms. They need to find another plan, a strategy over new characters that could work with the remaining ones, and STOP GIVING PSEUDO-ACTORS SO MUCH POWER OVER THE PROJECTS.

A few problems with this vid. A dark mirror villain is not always the arch-nemesis. Batman, Superman and Spiderman all have a deep rogues gallery. Thor and Iron Man were not top tier characters for Marvel but they did have successful launches. Black Adam is arguably Captain Marvel's Arch-nemesis but Dr Sivana (Silvana) truly is the primary antagonist. Now, a standalone Black Adam movie would have been fine - it should have been a prequel to Shazam (taking place in ancient Egypt hell even mention the wizard Shazam as the Champion before that) with it ultimately leading to Black Adam's exile into deep space and having his return and showdown with Shazam (god I hate calling him that - it's Captain Marvel) being the sequel.

I still don't understand how this movie is bad. I genuinely enjoyed it

It’s amazing that a film can be in development for soooooooo long and still be such a turd.

It's refreshing to finally see people highlight these issues with Johnson. At the end of the day, and the video covers it well, these types of films always fall flat. No one has ever wanted this movie that actually knows more than seeing a commercial for it. Johnson being everywhere for the last few years definitely hurt more than it helped. Dwayne Johnson stars in cheap popcorn trite. He doesn't really act. It's the same type of role over and over. Usually a quip happy, laughably large, dude that men cower at and women want. Basically he sees himself as every MCU hero. He's a boring actor that takes increasingly boring roles as time goes on. Say what you will about Bautista, but at least he's changing up his roles more and more.

That was a nice Iron Man/Hella swap holding Mjiolnir right there, had to double take real quick.

I actually really enjoyed Black Adam. But it was never going to do anything but hurt this cinematic universe

The legacy of Snyder's DCEU is so terrible, the guy they get to save every franchise, actually ended up putting the final nail on its coffin.... Sad!

I feel like they should've casted someone else to play Black Adam. All I see is The Rock playing The Rock and that's it. The movie was okay, but it didn't really grab you like most origin or solo hero stories do. I was more interested in Dr. Fate, but even then it didn't really make up for the rest of the film.

To be honest I liked black adam and another movie that I would like you to talk about is why blade trinity failed after the first two were amazingly great

Bruh Batman v superman was the death blow

The link was not in the description below lol

I actually liked it. It was fun, it tried to explore its character and put some importance on the people of Khandaq. Superhero movies barely do any of those things

I miss the justice league cartoon....

hey! We got a big star to play the part of Black Adam. That's great. Now we don't have to try.

Also I hate how in this DCEU there are comics and merchandise reagrding superheroes like our world..i feel that it is so silly...like in Shazam movie, there were Batman balloon blow up dolls in the mall which feels so weird seeing how in Batman is portrayed as a vigilante in the universe..its all over the place and i hated it

Hey, at least it get The Rock out of that jungle adventurer role. That’s some achievement right there!

I have only follow 2 superhero movies: Batman and X men, besides that I never cared over MCU or DC but I must say I actually enjoyed Black Adam.

Batman Beyond film cancelled??? I've been waiting for one for years!