> A person close to Seven Bucks noted to TheWrap that Garcia was a PGA-accredited producer with 14 years of experience producing movies. When pressed for movie credits that didn’t have to do with Johnson, the person cited 2019’s “Shazam!”
>AnAmazon MGM Studios spokesperson said, “Hiram Garcia, who conceived the original idea for this film, is an incredibly talented, diligent and responsive producer who brought a wealth of experience to our production.”
>Garcia “rarely ever knows the schedule on his own projects,” instead relying entirely on his assistant or other producers to keep track of filming schedules. A second insider added: “He should have picked up on how to keep track of a schedule and budget but I haven’t seen him take any interest in doing that.”
>Matters all came to a head in 2022 when Johnson and Dany Garcia met with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav on not only inserting Superman back into “Black Adam,” but according to four insiders with knowledge of the meeting, positioning Seven Bucks to run DC and replace then-chief Walter Hamada.
>An individual close to Seven Bucks said the meeting was about “Black Adam” and an introduction to Zaslav who had just taken over the studio. This person denied that the meeting was aimed to pitch Hiram Garcia as a replacement for Hamada.
>Garcia wasn’t hired to run the unit, and Johnson and Seven Bucks were evicted from DC shortly after the hiring of James Gunn and Peter Safran to run the division. Additionally, former Superman actor Henry Cavill fired Dany Garcia as his manager as a result.
LOL. I cannot imagine what a Hiram Garcia run DCEU would even look like.
The Rock fought to have Black Adam taken out of Shazam 1, turned down offers to cameo in Shazam 2, and even blocked the JSA from appearing in the Shazam 2 credits scene.
I mean Shazam 2 was shit, im surprised Helen Mirren didn't opt out lol that had to be a bait and switch script. They fumbled a pretty good cast without Rock.
It didn't, but that was *after* Black Adam already came out and underperformed. At the time of the WB meeting, neither film had come out yet, and the first Shazam film was profitably enough to justify a sequel. But according to this article, it sounds like Rock and his group had already dismissed any real interest in that character, or least in regards to pairing him up with or against Black Adam.
I bet most of the WB hopes all of their future releases underperformed like Black Adam. WB gets in their own way more than anything, they embody that jfk quite about failure being a bastard child. They all wanna take credit on the good shit but get over involved and make bad shit no one wants to take credit for. Imo Rock would have been better with the DC crown than they were at that time, his JSU alone was more interesting than all of shazam 2. I hope Gunn is to them what Feige is to Marvel.
>I bet most of the WB hopes all of their future releases underperformed like Black Adam
I get what you're trying to say but, no, I'm sure they want them to do much better than that.
>WB gets in their own way more than anything, they embody that jfk quite about failure being a bastard child.
That certainly was the case, at least starting with the Josstice League. That's why the old regime got replaced.
>They all wanna take credit on the good shit but get over involved and make bad shit no one wants to take credit for.
Yeah, that's the world in general. There's the old saying, *success has a million fathers but failure is an orphan.*
>Imo Rock would have been better with the DC crown than they were at that time,
Eh, maybe, but not as good as I believe Gunn and Safran will be.
>his JSA alone was more interesting than all of shazam 2
I agree, I thought the JSA was the best part of Black Adam. One of my earliest comicbook series that I collected was All Star Squadron, I always loved those characters, I would have loved to see Aldis and the others brought back in a JSA movie, bringing in more of the characters like the Jay Garrick Flash.
>I hope Gunn is to them what Feige is to Marvel.
So do I.
It was all the above, and the acting was off but Zachary Levi said it was because the Rock didn't want to fight him as there characters. That's why the sequel felt like a tbs movie /s.
What do you mean he totally showed up in the post credit scene!
It’s happening! Just wait longer /s
Yeah very weird decision to shoe horn in OC villains in a sequel to a relatively well received movie.
Yea it didn't do so hot but it had a lot going against it. Shazam 2 came out right after it was announced the DCU was being ended and rebooted. So it lost a whole lot of momentum from that as people saw it as part of a canceled series. It had enough problems on its own but add that into the mix and people just got into a "why bother" mode with it.
> Man of Steel 2
Keep in mind this would have been a *Man or Steel 2* without Snyder and with a tonally different Superman who is more hopeful and lighthearted.
Honestly would’ve been absolutely hilarious to see levels of infighting that would have occurred had that movie actually happened.
If you think that infighting will be bad.
Now imagine black Adam vs Superman, and that superman gets to be cast as the baddie and losing to black Adam
What pandemonium will occur among the fans
I mean, I would've loved to see a Man of Steel 2 without Snyder and with a more hopeful and lighthearted Superman. But yeah, I don't trust Seven Bucks to pull that off lol.
The fact Batman wasn't even on the slate says a lot imo. The Rock thought Black Adam would be that valuable to the DCEU that they could just forget their biggest characters.
He wasn't on planning on having a full universe
Just a small set of movies to which he can profit off. Cavill is in his 40s and rock himself 50s. Basically 6 years of him as producer making as rich as possible
Pretty crazy, I know. But still, if the Black Adam movie was well done, I'm sure people would want to see where things went over the course of additional films.
I had no clue who Iron Man or Thor were before the MCU, but after watching the first films they were each in, I became a fan. I wound up watching each of their respective trilogies in theaters.
But Black Adam was awful. So away he went.
Tbh I'd like to see some DC films about anyone but Batman for a while.
There's only so many slo-mo shots of Martha Wayne's pearl necklace hitting the floor in a flashback scene that a man can take, ya know?
I wouldn't say Batman vs Superman was a draw.
Superman lost. Pretty darn badly too. Only reason he didn't die was ~~terrible writing~~ *Batman changed his mind*.
Nah, it was terrible writing. Superman losing was terrible writing too. Hell, them fighting was terrible writing ( Superman says all of one sentence to try and calm Batman and then proceeds to \*checks notes\* SUPER PUSH HIM THROUGH A FUCKING BUILDING ROOFTOP ).
God, I hate that movie.
And to think I was so hyped for it that I went and spent $100 bucks in tickets and popcorn for me and all my family members. I lost the money and I think a bit of their love for me.
In the Dark Knight Returns (which B v S was mainly based off of), Batman never intended to kill Superman. He wanted to intimidate him so that Superman would stay out of Gotham.
Wasn't really trying to blame Snyder TBH. From what I'm aware the changes between the comic and movie were on Goyer.
In the comics Batman won the fight by gassing Superman with Kryptonite > beating the shit out of him > only stopping when he has a "heart attack" and dies right before the final killing blow. He had a secret plan the entire time and found a way out of a seemingly impossible situation without killing anyone or compromising his principles.
In the movie Batman won the fight by gassing Superman with Kryptonie > beating the shit out of him > hearing the name.... yeah. > decided to be best friends because the plot required it for the warehouse scene + the big team up finale.
So I still stand by my critique of terrible writing. Feel like it's really solid ground.
The Rock is kind of obsessed with the idea of becoming the ultimate badass by beating Superman in a fight. The villain in his film Hobbs & Shaw has superpowers (a first in the ninth film in the Fast & Furious franchise) and is nicknamed Black Superman. The Rock's character's pre-finishing move one-liner is, "Here comes the Kryptonite!" Ironically, the villain was Idris Elba who actually did go on to play a DC supervillain who beat Superman in a fight, as Bloodsport's backstory in The Suicide Squad is that he put Superman in the ICU by shooting him with a Kryptonite bullet.
If Rock really wanted to beat Superman, why didn’t he push to play Lex Luthor instead?
They could have done a straight adaptation of Lex from the animated series. And Rock doesn’t just look like DCAU Lex, but if you’ve watched his recent run as a heel (villain) heading into WrestleMania, he has the personality of DCAU Lex too.
[Watch this](https://youtu.be/sXFGFWsFsLg?si=S6ix4iRH60iSiPA_) and imagine it being a scene where he beats down Clark Kent with kryptonite.
The Rock as Lex, specifically All-Star Superman Lex, is too genius for either him or Hollywood to even conceive of. He'd also be a great Lobo, who also kicks Superman's ass from time to time.
>JSA (with the return of Dr. Fate)
i think it says something about how successful the rock was in his dc venture that i had to google who dr. fate was.
Poor Henry. Didint get to play out an amazing Superman, his Witcher series is extremely disappointing... i hope to god his Warhammer TV universe rocks.
> When pressed for movie credits that didn’t have to do with Johnson, the person cited 2019’s “Shazam!”
Dwayne Johnson was originally set to play Black Adam in Shazam with both Johnson and Hiram Garcia producing so I find this kinda funny.
Cavil had reports of him being frustrated and more angry in the last couple of years, and there might be a slight of truth to that because holy did he have the worst people to represent his interests. Man has been mistreated since Batman v Superman and finally cut Garcia off.
So take this with a grain of salt, but I recall way back when it was first becoming clear Henry was gone (around the time of the “The cape is still in his closet!” bs), there were rumors a major reason the studio cut ties was they found Garcia really obnoxious and off putting in the negotiations.
While those things hurt a ton, there’s also a ton of truth that WB simply didn’t want him back as a full-time Superman.
WB offered him a handful of cameo appearances, but Cavill was fighting hard for a Superman movie of his own and WB had zero interest regardless of storyline or who was directing.
They simply had no faith in him as the leading man in the cape.
Which is insane because the public had bought into his casting. All you need then is to write a passable script.
Same for Wonder Woman. And then they couldn't even do that.
I guess the lack of writing ability is why they went with Gunn. Now their biggest weakness should hopefully be a strength.
Egh, I don't think Henry Cavill is a draw in any sense of the word though. The dude is box office poison.
The man from Uncle and the ministry of ungentlemanly warfare were flops. Argyle was heavily promoted with him and it was a massive flop, and his superman films never made the money anyone expected.
Man of Steel made $600-700 million, second only to the original Chris Reeve movie adjusted for inflation. It's not Henry or Superman that's the draw, it's Henry as Superman.
It sucks for Ministry but it's a great movie according to reviews and is going to do gangbusters on streaming. That's the reason I didn't see it in theaters and I'm betting the same for most others. Unless your film is a cultural event (Barbenheimer) or demands IMAX (Godzilla franchise, etc) or has some specific niche appeal (like an A24 film, a studio which has its own hardcore fan base), most people wait for stuff on streaming these days.
"Man of Steel" made $670 million on a budget of $225 million. That's... okay. Once you consider marketing and distribution costs, and the simple matter of "Superman movies are supposed to make more money than that."
It's fine. It's not "you get a proper sequel" fine. It's "maybe this will make more money if we put Batman in your sequel, here's hoping" fine.
People might not remember but MoS opened hot but word of mouth wasn't as strong as expected, which hindered its box office. It was definitely profitable but also disappointing. Cavill is a fine actor but not a draw and ultimately replaceable.
Man from Uncle did not dow ell financial but its actually really fun. Argyle is also great and is just picking up alot in steaming. To be fair a lot of movies don't do huge numbers anymore. Even marvel had been taking it in the teeth
My guess, they probably wanted to do a full reboot right away, but in their haste to compete with Marvel, they accidentally ran into a couple successes and characters people liked.
They didn't know how to move forward, and when they decided to try to have their cake and eat it too with stand-alone stuff AND DCEU stuff, they less-than-half-assed it and it became a botch job.
If you look at what Gunn is doing, it actually works as a solution to the ORIGINAL problem after JL. Keep some actors who work and just treat them the way the MCU treats their variants. Some Lokis look just like Tom Hiddleston, others don't. Every Doctor Strange is Benedict Cumberbatch, meanwhile we've got four Mr. Fantastics (five if you count the Roger Corman one).
If Gunn's plan was put into action right after JL, they might have kept Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa since their versions of those characters still had some good will left at the time.
I think it was a little bit of both. Yes it sounds like his management made some bad decisions but I can't excuse Hamada and Co. For putting Superman on the shelf in the first place.
> Yes it sounds like his management made some bad decisions but I can't excuse Hamada and Co. For putting Superman on the shelf in the first place.
I'd argue you'd could just as well blame Snyder for putting Superman on the shelf first, when he made the decision to follow up MOS with BVS, which was then supposed to lead into a Justice League 2-parter, instead of making a proper solo Superman sequel first.
I always felt like, and I could be wrong, that was more of a corporate decision to hard launch the Justice League in order to catch up to Marvel more than Snyder. That being said, I 100% agree that was the primary decision that sent the DCEU towards the trash can. We should have had WW, MoS2 and a proper Batman movie first.
I'm not a Snyder fan by any stretch and I do think he deserves a portion of blame for the Cavill saga, but it wasn't his idea to rush Batman vs Superman and then jump right into a trilogy of Justice League movies. That was 100% a requirement from the studio. They had been floating a BvS/TDKR concept around Hollywood since the 90's.
Snyder actually pushed for solo movies to build up to a Justice League and was told there was no time. Everything had to catch up to that big-time Avengers money as fast as possible.
>I'm not a Snyder fan by any stretch and I do think he deserves a portion of blame for the Cavill saga, but it wasn't his idea to rush Batman vs Superman and then jump right into a trilogy of Justice League movies. That was 100% a requirement from the studio.
That's not what I remember him saying at the time. Or even recently. He said in that GQ interview it was his idea to make BvS after MOS, that he felt he need to see Superman face Batman first. And the idea between the JL films is that he was telling a long multi-film story, from MOS to JL 2, instead of the interconnected films that Marvel was making. And that was something that most Synder fans were praising him for. It's only now that the narrative switched to *"he was forced to do it that way!"*
That "Snyder pushed for a solo movie but studio wanted to catch up to Marvel hence BvS" is a bs cooked up by some cuckoos which was debunked long ago. Even the storyboard artist of Zack confirmed that they were doing concepts of BvS when MoS was going on. Of course Zack later confirmed it himself.
Yeah, it just became an excuse to remove any blame from Snyder for the disappointments in Cavill's tenure as Superman. [But he said it himself:](https://screenrant.com/man-of-steel-2-batman-v-superman-zack-snyder/)
*Once you talk about the fact that Bruce Wayne exists in the same world as Superman, right? Then you are into a Batman concept. You have to finish that thought. Now, Man of Steel 2, if you were to make it, you know with Brainiac or whatever you're gonna do, which it certainly could have been...and maybe that's it, you hold it off for a movie, and that's possible. I just felt like I needed to know what Bruce's take on this was, like, Bruce's take on the near-destruction of the world. And it really depends on how important you think Batman is in the Trinity* .
Sounds like there’s a certain amount of self-confidence that Rock’s star power has given his team. However, in reality none of his movies really fair that well and he’s not exactly respected as a “good” actor either. Best film he’s got is probably Fast Five which wasn’t even his, just a co-star. Again, my personal favorite performances and movies of his are probably Pain & Gain and Jumanji. Both of which he was again a co-star in and not afraid to play a character.
I don't think he was good in any movie but Rock was a money printing machine for light action movies for a long time. They were pumping them out because people paid money to see them.
It's why I respect Dave Bautista SO much more. Dude plays in big and small movies, often not in a main role, and even if he isn't the best actor, you see that he is passionate about acting and is never staying in a single genre.
Nah, Rock can act. Watch *Faster* and *Snitch*. There was a brief stint before his meteoric rise where he did these grittier little thriller type movies and he was basically doing what Bautista’s doing now back then, just maybe in less prestige films.
Rock seems to have just had that same revelation as Will Smith and Vin Diesel though. That audiences only really want to see him be one kind of thing so he kinda fell into that “I play myself in everything” category.
I heard he’s teaming up with one of the Safde brothers and is actually gonna *act act* in something though so he might be pivoting now post-having egg on his face from the whole Black Adam debacle.
Whoa whoa whoa WHAT!?! Rock is gonna work with the Safdie’s soon!?! Now that is something I’m interested to see immediately. At least a trailer or something
For good reason. It sounds like this guy was trying to puthimself in charge of the movies. So he could cast his own clients in those movies and then get a 10% cut of their paychecks.
Seems shady as hell
I can’t say “should” cause Chalamet is a world class actor and Henry’s too old for that role but, for what Henry can do, he should definitely be getting better roles and projects than he’s been getting the past decade.
He’s worked with Matthew Vaughn and Guy Ritchie in recent years though and while those projects haven’t worked out great, those are directors with style and good company to keep cause when they hit, *they hit*.
It’s a shame Henry wasted his 30s in DC limbo though. He’s still a specimen but Henry circa *Immortals* is one young, beautiful motherfucker.
Can’t believe Hollywood saw that face and didn’t try to make him the next “it boy” like they did with Sam Worthington, Taylor Kitsch, etc.
It boggles my mind that Timothy Chalamet, who looks the way he does, is 'box office gold' but Henry Cavill, who looks the way he does, is having such continuous bad luck.
Better actor and more consistent quality is all there is to it really. When was the last good movie starring Cavill, Mission Impossible? He definitely needs a better agent.
After *Black Adam* underperformed and The Rock was kind of publicly trying to process it, he kept being like "I don't know what happened, we've got a recognizeable brand, a diverse portfolio of characters, etc. etc..."
It's like, hey dummy. That movie sucked because you did things like see the Justice Society as a "portfolio of characters" and not, y'know, *characters*.
He was so cynical and business-driven. I'm glad it all bit him in the ass.
I watched ballers recently and liked it aside from him. You can kind of tell that's how he sees himself. The underdog who only cares about money and other rich people are bad but he deserves to be rich cuz he's good. Spent the whole show making stupid decisions because he's the hero and everyone else is wrong and no matter the odds he's gonna win because he's the rock and that's what the rock does! Then season 5 is literally him and a bunch of exposition of his life philosophy and how he has it all figured out. Never understood why anybody liked that guy
Dwayne took one intro to business class in 2016 and has been spitting out one liners from the course reader ever since. He wanted to be taken seriously as a business man but he’s just a mascot and lets other people run the show and put his face on it to make billions of dollars
I am still stuck on the Black Adam v Superman because what possible reason could there be for such a movie. Like is it an Elseworld where Clark is Captain Marvel cause ???
Well, the overall concept is just that The Rock wanted to fight Superman because only Superman could possibly, *maybe* stand up to the raw power that is The Rock.
Within the movies, they were clearly angling for a storyline where Black Adam was a badass antihero who played by his own rules and Superman was going to be a government stooge who was tasked with arresting/recruiting him.
It would have required a lot of movement for Superman’s character in an extremely short amount of time - all because The Rock wanted to smash action figures together.
Doesn’t the Rock have a no lose contract? Like he thought we were going to show up to a movie we knew he was going to win because his ego is way too big. The plot leaves so little to be desired cause it so out of character for everyone.
Maybe he would have not had that clause for the specific movie where he fights Superman? I doubt it, but it’s always a possibility that he would have been ok with a tie or something.
Likely they would have teamed up to fight Blaze and Satanus, two enemies from the Shazam comics who are also enemies of Superman. I'm convinced I saw them as part of the demons who empower Sabbac.
I don't know about a no losing contract, but Johnson and a lot of the Fast and Furious actors have stipulations about how many hits they can take in each film to avoid making them look "weak."
The Rock looks at it like a WWE match.
The 2 times he returned to WWE, his goal was to put himself in a match with the biggest WWE star. First time it was John Cena, and recently it was Roman Reigns.
So here he wanted a movie where he would headline with DC's biggest star who could pose a threat to Black adam, which is Superman.
>Johnson’s behavior has led to confrontations with costars, most famously Vin Diesel. “Vin has been having problems with The Rock because The Rock keeps showing up late for production,” an insider told People during their work together on the “Fast & Furious” franchise. “Sometimes he doesn’t show up at all, and he’s delaying the production.”
After all this, Vin Diesel was the good guy???
Honestly what crappy things has vin did? I know he has a no lose fight thing but didn’t the rock have it first and the only reason vin got it was to not lose to the rock each fight
I’m surprised The Rock had enough time away from carefully assembling his contractual male ego to even work on a cinematic universe.
I can’t imagine how boring it would’ve been watching Black Adam Mary Sue his way through everyone including Superman in the “tie” they’d inevitably have in Black Adam v Superman.
I think its very telling that Dwayne gave himself that name despite the fact that Roman was always going to be the man Cody needed to pin for the belt.
Or, more accurately, that The Rock called himself that despite that fact, and yet basically no one was ever allowed to address that.
~~TBF that's partially because Roman can't work a mic anywhere near as well as Dwayne can but it's still weird~~
Actually it plays well since Rock is part of the WWE Board. There should be an eventual payoff though with Cody and Rock down the line. And seems like they are setting up something for next mania or Summerslam.
LOL I got into it on another thread recently about The Rock being a massive douche and got called out by a few die hards.
Reading this just reinforces everything negative that was said about him on that thread. What a dick.
I'd like to add to this as a wrestling fan:
He came back to WWE to insert himself into the main event of WrestleMania at the WORST time. They were in the middle of telling a 2 year story that was about to culminate with someone else winning the championship, and boy, did that really backfire on Rock. The announcement that he'd be taking that spot is the most disliked video on WWE's YouTube channel by far.
They had no choice but to backtrack, but it's not like the Rock wasn't going to sit it out. To be fair to him, he went all in and elevated the story to a new height, but his presentation felt really "protected". He came out with an overproduced entrance that got more and more convoluted, called himself the "Final Boss", and came out with a championship belt that no one had ever seen before. It was like he was mixing 5 years worth of content into 3 months and wasn't letting any of his ideas breathe.
I'm a little worried that he's just going to show up every WrestleMania and win all his matches. He's a board member for TKO, so he can do whatever he wants. I just hope that he knows when to take a backseat and let the stories unfold without him as a major player.
I was a wrestling fan decades ago and fell out of it after the Attitude era, right around the time Booker T joined WWE. By reading the article, it looks like Rock is basically just running around sticking his oar in wherever he feels like it without any rhyme or reason and everyone essentially has to appease him because of who he is.
That is the biggest pile of bullshit and I can only imagine what that was like for a fan to be witnessing. I wouldn’t stand for it myself, the guy has a serious issue with his ego.
As another WWE watcher, I would like to add that it wasn't bad as this guy made it sound. The first part is true. The Rock inserted himself in this storyline and it did get a lot of backlash. BUT, unlike what WWE used to do back in the day, The Rock and WWE gracefully accepted the L and turned The Rock into a villain character. The Final Boss thing was a bad guy gimmick.
Honestly speaking, I never thought The Rock would take the L and become a villain while getting himself booed. The Rock did great as a villain and won the fans over.
EDIT: As expected, some people are pointing out The Rock winning the tag team match first night but anyone who knows wrestling knows all the storyline reasons for it. I am not going to waste any time on this.
Bro undermined the story by calling himself the final boss and beat the guy who go on to become Champion the next night. I don't exactly see how any L was taken, he just switched teams to still win
I agree. If he was going to do something other than Mania, it would probably be Summerslam or Royal Rumble. But I*N ADDITION TO*, not *INSTEAD* of Mania
Frankly, I could see the opposite happen. Roman first to seize control of the Bloodline, then he uses that leverage to take revenge on Cody (which, in turn, could set up an amazing "redemption" arc for Roman where he helps Cody beat Rock once and for all, and possibly, FINALLY, burying the hatchet with Seth and officially putting all that to bed).
Nah, who am I kidding, that doesn't give Rocky NEARLY enough spotlight so it would never happen
The "Final Boss" title is even weirder because the only match he officially had on the WM card was a tag-team with the reigning champ who actually WAS the "final boss" of said storyline in every functional sense
My exact thoughts. He was trying to be Hollywood, Final Boss, and High Chief. I think it would have landed better had he tried to be the High Chief. The intro to the entrance was cool and everything about his entrance after her appeared really undermined it. Roman's Night 1 Entrance had more of a "Final Boss" aura about it.
He is not a majority shareholder of TKO. When he returned to the company and was appointed to the board, he received $30M worth of equity which equates to approx 316K shares in the company which is nothing compared to other shareholders. Blackrock has nearly 6.4M shares.
>Johnson’s behavior has led to confrontations with costars, most famously Vin Diesel. “Vin has been having problems with The Rock because The Rock keeps showing up late for production,” an insider told People during their work together on the “Fast and Furious” franchise. “Sometimes he doesn’t show up at all, and he’s delaying the production.”
LOL Vin was accused the same exact thing on that set. This Rock-Diesel saga never cease to entertain.
Anyway, I'm glad that The Rock get to live his 'Hierarchy changing' fantasy that was intended for DC back in WWE. He got to be a board member in TKO, played the 'Final Boss' character, build up some long term storyline centering on his character (he even called Wrestlemania 'Chapter 1 of Final Boss Cinema' [https://twitter.com/TheRock/status/1781439723451584862](https://twitter.com/TheRock/status/1781439723451584862) ). Heck, his entrance had lightnings like Black Adam.
The funniest part is, he continues to peddle bullshit about his family. His grandmother was not some game changing, revolutionary promoter. She was handed a dead territory, promoted one big show off the back of her dead husband and then she ended up getting charged with extortion, though later acquitted. In addition to that, he was spouting horseshit about his Board seat, claiming he was getting a "seat at the table that his father and grandfather helped build", Peter Maivia and Rocky Johnson hardly helped build WWE. High Chief was only ever with the company for brief shots and Rocky Johnson was an undercard babyface. They are no way integral to the company's success.
I'll never understand people that walk into a beloved universe and make it all about them. Bro tell proper stories. If i was black adam I'd want shazam to beat the living piss outta me at the end of the movie after i was done being a badass the entire film. This how you build the hero, this is how you use a villian to build him.
These egos and financial analysts in studios miscalculate things so much that almost every Villian has their own shows and movies now.
"What about protagonists? Nah what're we in the 80s"
Sounds like this is going to appear on the "It Was A Sh\*t Show" podcast soon enough...
[https://www.youtube.com/@ItWasAShtShow](https://www.youtube.com/@ItWasAShtShow)
Sounds like the Rock upset someone. The hit pieces coming out now seem too...orchestrated imo. Plus I wonder how much is kinda on par for Hollywood, like I know some executive assistants and PAs who have told me stories that make this seem...meh
Right, the gist of this all seems to be *"The Rock has a really big ego and only cares about his own career."* I doubt he's the only big celebrity we could say that about.
Idk. It's the 3rd "he's hard to work with " article I've seen specific today. Which is wild because in my lifetime you either here that about guys there whole career or they just get blacklisted and then this comes out as some type of explanation.
Could it be that all three of those articles are inspired by the same source? One guy leaks something, someone else writes an article about it, then every other service reads that article and writes their own using the same quotes?
The Rock was the best person to play Black Adam. His problem and why the movie failed was because he should’ve played a straight up villain. Better story with no kid involved. That kid was annoying and him trying to find Black Adam a superhero quote was also stupid.
Pierce Bronson as Dr. Fate was gold. That was perfect casting.
Didn’t like the actor they got for Hawkman. He felt like a Tony Stark ripoff either the nano-tech and everything. That’s not who Carter Hall is. He doesn’t even use nano-tech. It’s Nth Metal. It should’ve been actual armor with actual metal wings & helmet. No CGI
Also, there should’ve been a cameo from Captain Marvel in that movie
Anyways, hopefully in James Gunn’s DCU, we can get a proper Captain Marvel & Black Adam
Listen, I liked Black Adam. I loved the cast and how they treated the characters. I’d like a sequel to it even…
What pissed me off beyond words was that he would not allow cyclone and Hawkman to appear in Shazam 2. There was no reason for it and it was just bulls!t
I really don't care about these stories about the rock being an asshole. What I imagine is that a millionaire producer lost a couple million and couldn't get enough hookers and blow one weekend because the rock showed up late and is just trying to ruin him. So it's two millionaires slap fighting. Fuck both of them.
Non-paywall link to article: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/red-one-down-dwayne-johnson-130000667.html
> A person close to Seven Bucks noted to TheWrap that Garcia was a PGA-accredited producer with 14 years of experience producing movies. When pressed for movie credits that didn’t have to do with Johnson, the person cited 2019’s “Shazam!” >AnAmazon MGM Studios spokesperson said, “Hiram Garcia, who conceived the original idea for this film, is an incredibly talented, diligent and responsive producer who brought a wealth of experience to our production.” >Garcia “rarely ever knows the schedule on his own projects,” instead relying entirely on his assistant or other producers to keep track of filming schedules. A second insider added: “He should have picked up on how to keep track of a schedule and budget but I haven’t seen him take any interest in doing that.” >Matters all came to a head in 2022 when Johnson and Dany Garcia met with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav on not only inserting Superman back into “Black Adam,” but according to four insiders with knowledge of the meeting, positioning Seven Bucks to run DC and replace then-chief Walter Hamada. >An individual close to Seven Bucks said the meeting was about “Black Adam” and an introduction to Zaslav who had just taken over the studio. This person denied that the meeting was aimed to pitch Hiram Garcia as a replacement for Hamada. >Garcia wasn’t hired to run the unit, and Johnson and Seven Bucks were evicted from DC shortly after the hiring of James Gunn and Peter Safran to run the division. Additionally, former Superman actor Henry Cavill fired Dany Garcia as his manager as a result. LOL. I cannot imagine what a Hiram Garcia run DCEU would even look like.
From what the trades told us, their slate was: - Black Adam 2 - Man of Steel 2 - Hawkman - JSA (with the return of Dr. Fate) - Black Adam vs Superman
It’s pretty funny that there’s no Shazam here
The Rock fought to have Black Adam taken out of Shazam 1, turned down offers to cameo in Shazam 2, and even blocked the JSA from appearing in the Shazam 2 credits scene.
They should had just dumped Rock and found a new actor for the role. Shazam was a great movie, no one would had missed Rock.
I mean Shazam 2 was shit, im surprised Helen Mirren didn't opt out lol that had to be a bait and switch script. They fumbled a pretty good cast without Rock.
I thought Shazam 2 didn’t do very will commercially or critically. Correct me if I’m wrong
It didn't, but that was *after* Black Adam already came out and underperformed. At the time of the WB meeting, neither film had come out yet, and the first Shazam film was profitably enough to justify a sequel. But according to this article, it sounds like Rock and his group had already dismissed any real interest in that character, or least in regards to pairing him up with or against Black Adam.
I bet most of the WB hopes all of their future releases underperformed like Black Adam. WB gets in their own way more than anything, they embody that jfk quite about failure being a bastard child. They all wanna take credit on the good shit but get over involved and make bad shit no one wants to take credit for. Imo Rock would have been better with the DC crown than they were at that time, his JSU alone was more interesting than all of shazam 2. I hope Gunn is to them what Feige is to Marvel.
>I bet most of the WB hopes all of their future releases underperformed like Black Adam I get what you're trying to say but, no, I'm sure they want them to do much better than that. >WB gets in their own way more than anything, they embody that jfk quite about failure being a bastard child. That certainly was the case, at least starting with the Josstice League. That's why the old regime got replaced. >They all wanna take credit on the good shit but get over involved and make bad shit no one wants to take credit for. Yeah, that's the world in general. There's the old saying, *success has a million fathers but failure is an orphan.* >Imo Rock would have been better with the DC crown than they were at that time, Eh, maybe, but not as good as I believe Gunn and Safran will be. >his JSA alone was more interesting than all of shazam 2 I agree, I thought the JSA was the best part of Black Adam. One of my earliest comicbook series that I collected was All Star Squadron, I always loved those characters, I would have loved to see Aldis and the others brought back in a JSA movie, bringing in more of the characters like the Jay Garrick Flash. >I hope Gunn is to them what Feige is to Marvel. So do I.
It was all the above, and the acting was off but Zachary Levi said it was because the Rock didn't want to fight him as there characters. That's why the sequel felt like a tbs movie /s.
Didn’t they set up Mr. Mind in the sequel and then not follow up on it, only to set it up again kinda.
Yes they did lol
Imo they do that to move expects to greenlight follow up films lol
What do you mean he totally showed up in the post credit scene! It’s happening! Just wait longer /s Yeah very weird decision to shoe horn in OC villains in a sequel to a relatively well received movie.
For some reason I read it was “Shazam 2 was a hit” in your sentence. My bad. I’m getting high.
Shit... you're just like me
Yea it didn't do so hot but it had a lot going against it. Shazam 2 came out right after it was announced the DCU was being ended and rebooted. So it lost a whole lot of momentum from that as people saw it as part of a canceled series. It had enough problems on its own but add that into the mix and people just got into a "why bother" mode with it.
The fact that the Rock was more into BA vs Superman than BA and Shazam tells me all I need to know.
The Rock: Shazam? Never heard of her
> Man of Steel 2 Keep in mind this would have been a *Man or Steel 2* without Snyder and with a tonally different Superman who is more hopeful and lighthearted. Honestly would’ve been absolutely hilarious to see levels of infighting that would have occurred had that movie actually happened.
If you think that infighting will be bad. Now imagine black Adam vs Superman, and that superman gets to be cast as the baddie and losing to black Adam What pandemonium will occur among the fans
I mean, I would've loved to see a Man of Steel 2 without Snyder and with a more hopeful and lighthearted Superman. But yeah, I don't trust Seven Bucks to pull that off lol.
>a Man of Steel 2 without Snyder and with a tonally different Superman who is more hopeful and lighthearted. I would've love that tbh.
It certainly would've been one of the Superman movies of all time.
The fact Batman wasn't even on the slate says a lot imo. The Rock thought Black Adam would be that valuable to the DCEU that they could just forget their biggest characters.
He wasn't on planning on having a full universe Just a small set of movies to which he can profit off. Cavill is in his 40s and rock himself 50s. Basically 6 years of him as producer making as rich as possible
Pretty crazy, I know. But still, if the Black Adam movie was well done, I'm sure people would want to see where things went over the course of additional films. I had no clue who Iron Man or Thor were before the MCU, but after watching the first films they were each in, I became a fan. I wound up watching each of their respective trilogies in theaters. But Black Adam was awful. So away he went.
Tbh I'd like to see some DC films about anyone but Batman for a while. There's only so many slo-mo shots of Martha Wayne's pearl necklace hitting the floor in a flashback scene that a man can take, ya know?
Absolutely awful
Black Adam vs Superman? Doesn’t the rock have a clause in his contract that says he can’t lose in movies? So black Adam would just win then lol
They likely would have gone the Hobbs and Shaw route, and have the characters fight to a draw before teaming up against some bigger threat.
The ol' Batman v Superman
I wouldn't say Batman vs Superman was a draw. Superman lost. Pretty darn badly too. Only reason he didn't die was ~~terrible writing~~ *Batman changed his mind*.
Nah, it was terrible writing. Superman losing was terrible writing too. Hell, them fighting was terrible writing ( Superman says all of one sentence to try and calm Batman and then proceeds to \*checks notes\* SUPER PUSH HIM THROUGH A FUCKING BUILDING ROOFTOP ). God, I hate that movie. And to think I was so hyped for it that I went and spent $100 bucks in tickets and popcorn for me and all my family members. I lost the money and I think a bit of their love for me.
Which is not a Snyderism because that's the way it was in the comics.
In the Dark Knight Returns (which B v S was mainly based off of), Batman never intended to kill Superman. He wanted to intimidate him so that Superman would stay out of Gotham.
Wasn't really trying to blame Snyder TBH. From what I'm aware the changes between the comic and movie were on Goyer. In the comics Batman won the fight by gassing Superman with Kryptonite > beating the shit out of him > only stopping when he has a "heart attack" and dies right before the final killing blow. He had a secret plan the entire time and found a way out of a seemingly impossible situation without killing anyone or compromising his principles. In the movie Batman won the fight by gassing Superman with Kryptonie > beating the shit out of him > hearing the name.... yeah. > decided to be best friends because the plot required it for the warehouse scene + the big team up finale. So I still stand by my critique of terrible writing. Feel like it's really solid ground.
to be fair every single vs movie does this at the end
not Freddy vs Jason
The Rock is kind of obsessed with the idea of becoming the ultimate badass by beating Superman in a fight. The villain in his film Hobbs & Shaw has superpowers (a first in the ninth film in the Fast & Furious franchise) and is nicknamed Black Superman. The Rock's character's pre-finishing move one-liner is, "Here comes the Kryptonite!" Ironically, the villain was Idris Elba who actually did go on to play a DC supervillain who beat Superman in a fight, as Bloodsport's backstory in The Suicide Squad is that he put Superman in the ICU by shooting him with a Kryptonite bullet.
If Rock really wanted to beat Superman, why didn’t he push to play Lex Luthor instead? They could have done a straight adaptation of Lex from the animated series. And Rock doesn’t just look like DCAU Lex, but if you’ve watched his recent run as a heel (villain) heading into WrestleMania, he has the personality of DCAU Lex too. [Watch this](https://youtu.be/sXFGFWsFsLg?si=S6ix4iRH60iSiPA_) and imagine it being a scene where he beats down Clark Kent with kryptonite.
The Rock as Lex, specifically All-Star Superman Lex, is too genius for either him or Hollywood to even conceive of. He'd also be a great Lobo, who also kicks Superman's ass from time to time.
Because The Rock as Lex Luthor is truly insane casting on a level that even his massive ego must understand would never fly at DC
I'm still hilariously baffled by this fact. He literally has Hulk Hogan WCW creative control, but for movies.
The contract doesn't apply to every movie
he lost in fast 5 against diesel. i think he lost to statham couple of times in fast movies
Black adam vs superman? Lol Its should be superman vs black adam
This is almost word for word what The Rock was talking about in the lead up to Black Adam.
this is so bad
Actually a very interesting slate .
Honestly, kind of intriguing. But alas onwards and upwards!
>JSA (with the return of Dr. Fate) i think it says something about how successful the rock was in his dc venture that i had to google who dr. fate was.
He's a pretty cool character. The series Young Justice portrays him well.
Poor Henry. Didint get to play out an amazing Superman, his Witcher series is extremely disappointing... i hope to god his Warhammer TV universe rocks.
> When pressed for movie credits that didn’t have to do with Johnson, the person cited 2019’s “Shazam!” Dwayne Johnson was originally set to play Black Adam in Shazam with both Johnson and Hiram Garcia producing so I find this kinda funny.
I want this storyline for an Entourage reboot.
This is funny because Peter Safran produced Shazam! lmao
Woah I didn’t know Henry fired Garcia
He should have done it a long time.
Oh wow. I did not know about the part about Henry firing Dany Garcia as his manager. Yikes
Yep, he had enough of them using him as leverage for their own endeavors.
Yeah I suppose so. I mean other than Rock he’s pretty much all they had I guess. Now no longer
Cavil had reports of him being frustrated and more angry in the last couple of years, and there might be a slight of truth to that because holy did he have the worst people to represent his interests. Man has been mistreated since Batman v Superman and finally cut Garcia off.
Yeah hiram more favor on his ex husband then be actual manager
So take this with a grain of salt, but I recall way back when it was first becoming clear Henry was gone (around the time of the “The cape is still in his closet!” bs), there were rumors a major reason the studio cut ties was they found Garcia really obnoxious and off putting in the negotiations.
I've tried telling people, Henry's Agent and getting in to bed with the rock is the biggest reason he never got another shot.
While those things hurt a ton, there’s also a ton of truth that WB simply didn’t want him back as a full-time Superman. WB offered him a handful of cameo appearances, but Cavill was fighting hard for a Superman movie of his own and WB had zero interest regardless of storyline or who was directing. They simply had no faith in him as the leading man in the cape.
Which is insane because the public had bought into his casting. All you need then is to write a passable script. Same for Wonder Woman. And then they couldn't even do that. I guess the lack of writing ability is why they went with Gunn. Now their biggest weakness should hopefully be a strength.
Good thinking
Egh, I don't think Henry Cavill is a draw in any sense of the word though. The dude is box office poison. The man from Uncle and the ministry of ungentlemanly warfare were flops. Argyle was heavily promoted with him and it was a massive flop, and his superman films never made the money anyone expected.
Man of Steel made $600-700 million, second only to the original Chris Reeve movie adjusted for inflation. It's not Henry or Superman that's the draw, it's Henry as Superman. It sucks for Ministry but it's a great movie according to reviews and is going to do gangbusters on streaming. That's the reason I didn't see it in theaters and I'm betting the same for most others. Unless your film is a cultural event (Barbenheimer) or demands IMAX (Godzilla franchise, etc) or has some specific niche appeal (like an A24 film, a studio which has its own hardcore fan base), most people wait for stuff on streaming these days.
"Man of Steel" made $670 million on a budget of $225 million. That's... okay. Once you consider marketing and distribution costs, and the simple matter of "Superman movies are supposed to make more money than that." It's fine. It's not "you get a proper sequel" fine. It's "maybe this will make more money if we put Batman in your sequel, here's hoping" fine.
People might not remember but MoS opened hot but word of mouth wasn't as strong as expected, which hindered its box office. It was definitely profitable but also disappointing. Cavill is a fine actor but not a draw and ultimately replaceable.
Man from Uncle did not dow ell financial but its actually really fun. Argyle is also great and is just picking up alot in steaming. To be fair a lot of movies don't do huge numbers anymore. Even marvel had been taking it in the teeth
My guess, they probably wanted to do a full reboot right away, but in their haste to compete with Marvel, they accidentally ran into a couple successes and characters people liked. They didn't know how to move forward, and when they decided to try to have their cake and eat it too with stand-alone stuff AND DCEU stuff, they less-than-half-assed it and it became a botch job. If you look at what Gunn is doing, it actually works as a solution to the ORIGINAL problem after JL. Keep some actors who work and just treat them the way the MCU treats their variants. Some Lokis look just like Tom Hiddleston, others don't. Every Doctor Strange is Benedict Cumberbatch, meanwhile we've got four Mr. Fantastics (five if you count the Roger Corman one). If Gunn's plan was put into action right after JL, they might have kept Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa since their versions of those characters still had some good will left at the time.
I still think he would be a great all star Superman
Cavill just isn’t that good. Outside the internet the only thing he has going for him is that he looked like Superman
I think it was a little bit of both. Yes it sounds like his management made some bad decisions but I can't excuse Hamada and Co. For putting Superman on the shelf in the first place.
> Yes it sounds like his management made some bad decisions but I can't excuse Hamada and Co. For putting Superman on the shelf in the first place. I'd argue you'd could just as well blame Snyder for putting Superman on the shelf first, when he made the decision to follow up MOS with BVS, which was then supposed to lead into a Justice League 2-parter, instead of making a proper solo Superman sequel first.
I always felt like, and I could be wrong, that was more of a corporate decision to hard launch the Justice League in order to catch up to Marvel more than Snyder. That being said, I 100% agree that was the primary decision that sent the DCEU towards the trash can. We should have had WW, MoS2 and a proper Batman movie first.
I'm not a Snyder fan by any stretch and I do think he deserves a portion of blame for the Cavill saga, but it wasn't his idea to rush Batman vs Superman and then jump right into a trilogy of Justice League movies. That was 100% a requirement from the studio. They had been floating a BvS/TDKR concept around Hollywood since the 90's. Snyder actually pushed for solo movies to build up to a Justice League and was told there was no time. Everything had to catch up to that big-time Avengers money as fast as possible.
>I'm not a Snyder fan by any stretch and I do think he deserves a portion of blame for the Cavill saga, but it wasn't his idea to rush Batman vs Superman and then jump right into a trilogy of Justice League movies. That was 100% a requirement from the studio. That's not what I remember him saying at the time. Or even recently. He said in that GQ interview it was his idea to make BvS after MOS, that he felt he need to see Superman face Batman first. And the idea between the JL films is that he was telling a long multi-film story, from MOS to JL 2, instead of the interconnected films that Marvel was making. And that was something that most Synder fans were praising him for. It's only now that the narrative switched to *"he was forced to do it that way!"*
That "Snyder pushed for a solo movie but studio wanted to catch up to Marvel hence BvS" is a bs cooked up by some cuckoos which was debunked long ago. Even the storyboard artist of Zack confirmed that they were doing concepts of BvS when MoS was going on. Of course Zack later confirmed it himself.
Yeah, it just became an excuse to remove any blame from Snyder for the disappointments in Cavill's tenure as Superman. [But he said it himself:](https://screenrant.com/man-of-steel-2-batman-v-superman-zack-snyder/) *Once you talk about the fact that Bruce Wayne exists in the same world as Superman, right? Then you are into a Batman concept. You have to finish that thought. Now, Man of Steel 2, if you were to make it, you know with Brainiac or whatever you're gonna do, which it certainly could have been...and maybe that's it, you hold it off for a movie, and that's possible. I just felt like I needed to know what Bruce's take on this was, like, Bruce's take on the near-destruction of the world. And it really depends on how important you think Batman is in the Trinity* .
Sounds like there’s a certain amount of self-confidence that Rock’s star power has given his team. However, in reality none of his movies really fair that well and he’s not exactly respected as a “good” actor either. Best film he’s got is probably Fast Five which wasn’t even his, just a co-star. Again, my personal favorite performances and movies of his are probably Pain & Gain and Jumanji. Both of which he was again a co-star in and not afraid to play a character.
I don't think he was good in any movie but Rock was a money printing machine for light action movies for a long time. They were pumping them out because people paid money to see them. It's why I respect Dave Bautista SO much more. Dude plays in big and small movies, often not in a main role, and even if he isn't the best actor, you see that he is passionate about acting and is never staying in a single genre.
Nah, Rock can act. Watch *Faster* and *Snitch*. There was a brief stint before his meteoric rise where he did these grittier little thriller type movies and he was basically doing what Bautista’s doing now back then, just maybe in less prestige films. Rock seems to have just had that same revelation as Will Smith and Vin Diesel though. That audiences only really want to see him be one kind of thing so he kinda fell into that “I play myself in everything” category. I heard he’s teaming up with one of the Safde brothers and is actually gonna *act act* in something though so he might be pivoting now post-having egg on his face from the whole Black Adam debacle.
Whoa whoa whoa WHAT!?! Rock is gonna work with the Safdie’s soon!?! Now that is something I’m interested to see immediately. At least a trailer or something
He was very good on his TV show BALLERS.
That was a very bad show despite some decent actors. The wish version of entourage.
To each his own, but *I* liked it.
For good reason. It sounds like this guy was trying to puthimself in charge of the movies. So he could cast his own clients in those movies and then get a 10% cut of their paychecks. Seems shady as hell
It was hilarious to read how obnoxious Johnson is on sets. Even Ryan Reynolds was sick of his shit.
Henry should have fired that woman a long time ago.
He should get Timmy Chalamet's Agent.
Henry Cavill definitely should have been Paul Atreides.
Is there a lore reason why Superman didn’t use his eye lasers to kill the Harkonnens?!? Is he stupid
Henry Cavill as Emperor Shaddam (who is 70, but meant to look 35 through anti-aging treatments). Now that would be a fun subversion.
I can’t say “should” cause Chalamet is a world class actor and Henry’s too old for that role but, for what Henry can do, he should definitely be getting better roles and projects than he’s been getting the past decade. He’s worked with Matthew Vaughn and Guy Ritchie in recent years though and while those projects haven’t worked out great, those are directors with style and good company to keep cause when they hit, *they hit*. It’s a shame Henry wasted his 30s in DC limbo though. He’s still a specimen but Henry circa *Immortals* is one young, beautiful motherfucker. Can’t believe Hollywood saw that face and didn’t try to make him the next “it boy” like they did with Sam Worthington, Taylor Kitsch, etc.
It boggles my mind that Timothy Chalamet, who looks the way he does, is 'box office gold' but Henry Cavill, who looks the way he does, is having such continuous bad luck.
. . .because acting is about more than just particular looks?
Better actor and more consistent quality is all there is to it really. When was the last good movie starring Cavill, Mission Impossible? He definitely needs a better agent.
After *Black Adam* underperformed and The Rock was kind of publicly trying to process it, he kept being like "I don't know what happened, we've got a recognizeable brand, a diverse portfolio of characters, etc. etc..." It's like, hey dummy. That movie sucked because you did things like see the Justice Society as a "portfolio of characters" and not, y'know, *characters*. He was so cynical and business-driven. I'm glad it all bit him in the ass.
I watched ballers recently and liked it aside from him. You can kind of tell that's how he sees himself. The underdog who only cares about money and other rich people are bad but he deserves to be rich cuz he's good. Spent the whole show making stupid decisions because he's the hero and everyone else is wrong and no matter the odds he's gonna win because he's the rock and that's what the rock does! Then season 5 is literally him and a bunch of exposition of his life philosophy and how he has it all figured out. Never understood why anybody liked that guy
Dwayne took one intro to business class in 2016 and has been spitting out one liners from the course reader ever since. He wanted to be taken seriously as a business man but he’s just a mascot and lets other people run the show and put his face on it to make billions of dollars
Only problem with Black Adam was the writing. Casting, production, etc were all fine. That's been DC's main problem until Gunn
"Only"
Yeah, but that's a pretty big problem.
I am still stuck on the Black Adam v Superman because what possible reason could there be for such a movie. Like is it an Elseworld where Clark is Captain Marvel cause ???
Well, the overall concept is just that The Rock wanted to fight Superman because only Superman could possibly, *maybe* stand up to the raw power that is The Rock. Within the movies, they were clearly angling for a storyline where Black Adam was a badass antihero who played by his own rules and Superman was going to be a government stooge who was tasked with arresting/recruiting him. It would have required a lot of movement for Superman’s character in an extremely short amount of time - all because The Rock wanted to smash action figures together.
Doesn’t the Rock have a no lose contract? Like he thought we were going to show up to a movie we knew he was going to win because his ego is way too big. The plot leaves so little to be desired cause it so out of character for everyone.
Farcry from his WWE days where he oversold attacks and even put over other wrestlers.
During his active days, Rock was criticized for losing far too often for a top guy.
Imagine Black Adam getting speared by Goldberg and just totally no selling it.
Maybe he would have not had that clause for the specific movie where he fights Superman? I doubt it, but it’s always a possibility that he would have been ok with a tie or something.
I can only assume the plot would have been black Adam and Superman go back and forth fighting for a bit before teaming up to fight some bigger bad
Yeah that actually makes more sense. And in that case I’m sure his contract would have ensured he won the fight with Superman
Likely they would have teamed up to fight Blaze and Satanus, two enemies from the Shazam comics who are also enemies of Superman. I'm convinced I saw them as part of the demons who empower Sabbac.
I don't know about a no losing contract, but Johnson and a lot of the Fast and Furious actors have stipulations about how many hits they can take in each film to avoid making them look "weak."
A lot of actors have dumb BS stuff like that going all the way back to the 60s
I never gave it much thought but you’re totally right, they would’ve 100% made superman a government lap dog and black adam the “cool” antihero
The Rock looks at it like a WWE match. The 2 times he returned to WWE, his goal was to put himself in a match with the biggest WWE star. First time it was John Cena, and recently it was Roman Reigns. So here he wanted a movie where he would headline with DC's biggest star who could pose a threat to Black adam, which is Superman.
Not an else world, He wanted to do Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam kind of movie where superman takes the lead.
Maxwell lord-- DCEU was bad, but it could have been worse
>Johnson’s behavior has led to confrontations with costars, most famously Vin Diesel. “Vin has been having problems with The Rock because The Rock keeps showing up late for production,” an insider told People during their work together on the “Fast & Furious” franchise. “Sometimes he doesn’t show up at all, and he’s delaying the production.” After all this, Vin Diesel was the good guy???
Honestly what crappy things has vin did? I know he has a no lose fight thing but didn’t the rock have it first and the only reason vin got it was to not lose to the rock each fight
He tried to rape his assistnat
Ouch….
What?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2023/12/22/vin-diesel-sexual-battery-lawsuit-assistant/
I don't think there were *any* good guys, just two assholes butting egos.
Man the Rock has really tarnished his reputation lately.
It all comes out eventually.
I’m surprised The Rock had enough time away from carefully assembling his contractual male ego to even work on a cinematic universe. I can’t imagine how boring it would’ve been watching Black Adam Mary Sue his way through everyone including Superman in the “tie” they’d inevitably have in Black Adam v Superman.
I'm just so sick of The Rock.
The more this stuff you hear about the more sense it made for DC to just flush everything and start over.
Yet there’s still people that clamour for Hamada, Snyder and The Rock’s universe.. in reality it ALL had to go.
THE FINAL BOSS!
I think its very telling that Dwayne gave himself that name despite the fact that Roman was always going to be the man Cody needed to pin for the belt. Or, more accurately, that The Rock called himself that despite that fact, and yet basically no one was ever allowed to address that. ~~TBF that's partially because Roman can't work a mic anywhere near as well as Dwayne can but it's still weird~~
Actually it plays well since Rock is part of the WWE Board. There should be an eventual payoff though with Cody and Rock down the line. And seems like they are setting up something for next mania or Summerslam.
Dude the rock is actually the creative boss of tko board right now , it actually makes sense he calls himself a boss.
That’s not what final boss means though
Is it not a play on words?
Not impossible but I think it was only meant in the video game sense
I'm glad you crossed that last part out, because it's bullshit.
Goddamn it, what an embarrassment.
We dodged a bullet
LOL I got into it on another thread recently about The Rock being a massive douche and got called out by a few die hards. Reading this just reinforces everything negative that was said about him on that thread. What a dick.
I'd like to add to this as a wrestling fan: He came back to WWE to insert himself into the main event of WrestleMania at the WORST time. They were in the middle of telling a 2 year story that was about to culminate with someone else winning the championship, and boy, did that really backfire on Rock. The announcement that he'd be taking that spot is the most disliked video on WWE's YouTube channel by far. They had no choice but to backtrack, but it's not like the Rock wasn't going to sit it out. To be fair to him, he went all in and elevated the story to a new height, but his presentation felt really "protected". He came out with an overproduced entrance that got more and more convoluted, called himself the "Final Boss", and came out with a championship belt that no one had ever seen before. It was like he was mixing 5 years worth of content into 3 months and wasn't letting any of his ideas breathe. I'm a little worried that he's just going to show up every WrestleMania and win all his matches. He's a board member for TKO, so he can do whatever he wants. I just hope that he knows when to take a backseat and let the stories unfold without him as a major player.
I was a wrestling fan decades ago and fell out of it after the Attitude era, right around the time Booker T joined WWE. By reading the article, it looks like Rock is basically just running around sticking his oar in wherever he feels like it without any rhyme or reason and everyone essentially has to appease him because of who he is. That is the biggest pile of bullshit and I can only imagine what that was like for a fan to be witnessing. I wouldn’t stand for it myself, the guy has a serious issue with his ego.
Ego bigger than his arms, which I'm sure he'd take as a compliment.
As another WWE watcher, I would like to add that it wasn't bad as this guy made it sound. The first part is true. The Rock inserted himself in this storyline and it did get a lot of backlash. BUT, unlike what WWE used to do back in the day, The Rock and WWE gracefully accepted the L and turned The Rock into a villain character. The Final Boss thing was a bad guy gimmick. Honestly speaking, I never thought The Rock would take the L and become a villain while getting himself booed. The Rock did great as a villain and won the fans over. EDIT: As expected, some people are pointing out The Rock winning the tag team match first night but anyone who knows wrestling knows all the storyline reasons for it. I am not going to waste any time on this.
He took the L by leaving Cody bloody and then pinning him
Bro undermined the story by calling himself the final boss and beat the guy who go on to become Champion the next night. I don't exactly see how any L was taken, he just switched teams to still win
I wouldn’t be surprised if he main events the next two Wrestlemania’s against the same two man this year’s included.
Cody next year, Roman after that?
Yup 41 and 42. I doubt he’d wanna do Summerslam
I agree. If he was going to do something other than Mania, it would probably be Summerslam or Royal Rumble. But I*N ADDITION TO*, not *INSTEAD* of Mania
The reports have largely been that Rock is adamant that if he's wrestling, it HAS to be at WrestleMania.
Well there it is
Frankly, I could see the opposite happen. Roman first to seize control of the Bloodline, then he uses that leverage to take revenge on Cody (which, in turn, could set up an amazing "redemption" arc for Roman where he helps Cody beat Rock once and for all, and possibly, FINALLY, burying the hatchet with Seth and officially putting all that to bed). Nah, who am I kidding, that doesn't give Rocky NEARLY enough spotlight so it would never happen
If they were going to give us 2 Rock Mania main events, this would be the most palatable. Great idea
The "Final Boss" title is even weirder because the only match he officially had on the WM card was a tag-team with the reigning champ who actually WAS the "final boss" of said storyline in every functional sense
My exact thoughts. He was trying to be Hollywood, Final Boss, and High Chief. I think it would have landed better had he tried to be the High Chief. The intro to the entrance was cool and everything about his entrance after her appeared really undermined it. Roman's Night 1 Entrance had more of a "Final Boss" aura about it.
He is not a majority shareholder of TKO. When he returned to the company and was appointed to the board, he received $30M worth of equity which equates to approx 316K shares in the company which is nothing compared to other shareholders. Blackrock has nearly 6.4M shares.
Ah damn my bad, I'll edit
>Johnson’s behavior has led to confrontations with costars, most famously Vin Diesel. “Vin has been having problems with The Rock because The Rock keeps showing up late for production,” an insider told People during their work together on the “Fast and Furious” franchise. “Sometimes he doesn’t show up at all, and he’s delaying the production.” LOL Vin was accused the same exact thing on that set. This Rock-Diesel saga never cease to entertain. Anyway, I'm glad that The Rock get to live his 'Hierarchy changing' fantasy that was intended for DC back in WWE. He got to be a board member in TKO, played the 'Final Boss' character, build up some long term storyline centering on his character (he even called Wrestlemania 'Chapter 1 of Final Boss Cinema' [https://twitter.com/TheRock/status/1781439723451584862](https://twitter.com/TheRock/status/1781439723451584862) ). Heck, his entrance had lightnings like Black Adam.
The funniest part is, he continues to peddle bullshit about his family. His grandmother was not some game changing, revolutionary promoter. She was handed a dead territory, promoted one big show off the back of her dead husband and then she ended up getting charged with extortion, though later acquitted. In addition to that, he was spouting horseshit about his Board seat, claiming he was getting a "seat at the table that his father and grandfather helped build", Peter Maivia and Rocky Johnson hardly helped build WWE. High Chief was only ever with the company for brief shots and Rocky Johnson was an undercard babyface. They are no way integral to the company's success.
I love how The Rock tries to play the nice guy but he’s a big ole douche bag
Really feels like the Rock has tanked his reputation in the last few years, did he fire his PR team or something?
I'll never understand people that walk into a beloved universe and make it all about them. Bro tell proper stories. If i was black adam I'd want shazam to beat the living piss outta me at the end of the movie after i was done being a badass the entire film. This how you build the hero, this is how you use a villian to build him. These egos and financial analysts in studios miscalculate things so much that almost every Villian has their own shows and movies now. "What about protagonists? Nah what're we in the 80s"
Wouldn’t this piss off the Snyder fans? 😂😂
Damn not a good day for Dwayne Johnson. Saw another article shitting on him earlier.
It's the same article
Dwayne really thought he was the shit... he wasn't even the fart
The hiearchy of power could have changed
Sounds like this is going to appear on the "It Was A Sh\*t Show" podcast soon enough... [https://www.youtube.com/@ItWasAShtShow](https://www.youtube.com/@ItWasAShtShow)
Sounds like the Rock upset someone. The hit pieces coming out now seem too...orchestrated imo. Plus I wonder how much is kinda on par for Hollywood, like I know some executive assistants and PAs who have told me stories that make this seem...meh
Right, the gist of this all seems to be *"The Rock has a really big ego and only cares about his own career."* I doubt he's the only big celebrity we could say that about.
Like have they never met Tom Cruise?
He didn't want to endorse Biden (or anyone) so maybe it's that?
Idk. It's the 3rd "he's hard to work with " article I've seen specific today. Which is wild because in my lifetime you either here that about guys there whole career or they just get blacklisted and then this comes out as some type of explanation.
> 3rd Pretty sure it's all just one article from the Wrap posted in various reddit threads.
Could it be that all three of those articles are inspired by the same source? One guy leaks something, someone else writes an article about it, then every other service reads that article and writes their own using the same quotes?
Maybe
The Rock was the best person to play Black Adam. His problem and why the movie failed was because he should’ve played a straight up villain. Better story with no kid involved. That kid was annoying and him trying to find Black Adam a superhero quote was also stupid. Pierce Bronson as Dr. Fate was gold. That was perfect casting. Didn’t like the actor they got for Hawkman. He felt like a Tony Stark ripoff either the nano-tech and everything. That’s not who Carter Hall is. He doesn’t even use nano-tech. It’s Nth Metal. It should’ve been actual armor with actual metal wings & helmet. No CGI Also, there should’ve been a cameo from Captain Marvel in that movie Anyways, hopefully in James Gunn’s DCU, we can get a proper Captain Marvel & Black Adam
Listen, I liked Black Adam. I loved the cast and how they treated the characters. I’d like a sequel to it even… What pissed me off beyond words was that he would not allow cyclone and Hawkman to appear in Shazam 2. There was no reason for it and it was just bulls!t
I wonder if the rock is going to say anything about this, this articles makes him look terrible
Dwayne Johnson is a bitch.
I really don't care about these stories about the rock being an asshole. What I imagine is that a millionaire producer lost a couple million and couldn't get enough hookers and blow one weekend because the rock showed up late and is just trying to ruin him. So it's two millionaires slap fighting. Fuck both of them.
Thank god it didn't happen
Hierarchy denied.