Dwayne Johnson to Play Black Adam in ‘Shazam'
By Justin Kroll
Though Dwayne Johnson hasn’t been shy about teasing his potential involvement in DC and New Line’s Shazam movie, the superhero comicbook pic now looks closer to achieving lift-off.
Sources tell Variety that Darren Lemke is set to write the script with Johnson attached to star. Johnson will play Black Adam, who in recent issues of the DC comicbook, is more of an anti-hero trying to clear his name than a villain.
Hiram Garcia is producing.
Johnson confirmed the casting this morning by tweeting out which character he would be playing in the film.
Johnson has been teasing the idea of playing Shazam or Black Adam for sometime now on his social media sites, and some thought Warners might introduce him as Shazam at this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego. During the promotion for Hercules, it still wasn’t clear which character he would play.
Shazam, aka Captain Marvel, has an alter ego Billy Batson, who can transform into superhero form by saying the words “Shazam,” and then develops the powers of six mythological gods.
In the last decade, Shazam has regularly appeared in Justice League of America comics as well as Frank Miller’s “Batman” comics.
No production date has been set, as Lemke has just been brought on to write. But once a script is delivered, DC is likely to move fast to get the film quickly up and running .
Lemke most recently penned the Goosebumps script for Sony; his past credits include DreamWorks Animation’s Turbo and Jack the Giant Slayer. He is repped by UTA.
The comicbook pic could grow into a series of films for the Johnson, who is continuing to add more franchises to his resume.
He already has The Fast and Furious and G.I. Joe films keeping him busy with Fast and Furious 7 bowing next April and G.I. Joe 3 in 2016.
Johnson is filming the disaster pic San Andreas for New Line and recently completed production on Ballers, which HBO has picked up to series. He is repped by WME and the Garcia Cos.
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