Who would’ve ever guessed that the profitability of Dwayne Johnson‘s Black Adam may end in a big controversy. A first report dropped pointing to the film potentially losing around $50M to even $100M, rivaling Strange World‘s reported losses at the box office. Yet, a sudden article by Deadline dropped revealing that the film will turn a profit of around $52M to even $72M. Johnson even went out of his way to post a tweet that they he was waiting “to confirm with financiers” ahead of sharing the news.
Now, while some latched unto this news as a confirmation, it did raise many eyebrows. Not only did he compare the film’s box office to Captain America: The First Avenger from 2011 with a much lower budget, but the profits shared include everything beyond its pure box office income. Not only did it include the VOD and Blu-ray revenue streams, but even a payment for its release on HBO Max, an in-house streaming service.
Now, Puck’s Matt Beloni, who has shared quite a few stories in the past, revealed that according to “several Warners executives” the numbers are based on “false assumptions” and were purposefully leaked by Team Dwayne Johnson. The actor’s tweet seemingly adding to the accusations and added some doubt of the film making the revenue it projected for its home release. He does go on to state that “nearly all movies of this size will ultimately pencil out” but does point that this doesn’t mean they’ll just move forward with the franchise. Some profits are better than others.
There are already reports that we won’t be seeing a sequel to Black Adam, but there’s also the factor of the newly formed DC Studios mapping out the next ten years that may or may not include whatever Dwayne Johnson has set out for himself in the franchise. He’s no stranger to wanting to create his own roadmap and get his way but we’ll have to see if DC’s future has any plans for Black Adam moving forward. Going over Warner Bros. heads might not have left a good impression if this report turns out to be true.
Source: Deadline, Variety, Twitter, Puck via The Direct
