Dwayne Johnson blames “change in leadership” on ‘Black Adam 2’ cancellation

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has spoken out about the cancellation of Black Adam 2 and said it was down to “new leadership” at DC Studios.

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Plans for the character, which included a sequel, were dropped when co-CEOs James Gunn, and Peter Safran came in last year.

“James Gunn and I connected, and Black Adam will not be in [DC Studios’] first chapter of storytelling,” Johnson wrote at the time. “However, DC and Seven Bucks [Johnson’s production company] have agreed to continue exploring the most valuable ways Black Adam can be utilized in future DC multiverse chapters.”

He has now spoken further about the character on a new episode of Kevin Hart’s Hart To Hart talk show (via Variety).

“Black Adam got caught in a vortex of new leadership. It was so many changes in leadership. Anytime you have a company, a publicly traded company, and you have all those changes in leadership, you have people coming in who, creatively and fiscally, are going to make decisions that you may not agree with,” Johnson said.

Johnson compared dropping the character to “new ownership coming in and buying an NFL team and going, ‘Not my coach, not my quarterback.’ It doesn’t matter how many times you won the Super Bowl or how many rings you got, you’re going with somebody else.”

He also said he still can’t understand why further plans for Black Adam were axed given its success.

Johnson continued: “That will always be one of the biggest mysteries. You have the biggest opening of your career. Sure, no China, which could’ve been maybe 100 or 200 million more dollars. You have a superhero and you want to grow out the franchise. You bring Superman and Henry Cavill, which the world went crazy. And we created a diverse superhero portfolio, where we have just men and women of colour in Black Adam.”

In a two-star review, NME said the film’s “fun moments” were “overshadowed by the writers’ constant need to over-explain each plot point”, and said the character of Black Adam himself lacked charisma.

Meanwhile, Gunn recently confirmed David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan have been cast in the lead roles in Superman: Legacy as part of DC’s new film universe. It is scheduled to be released on July 11, 2025.

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