A few months ago, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson announced that he had met with Warner Bros. to appear in an upcoming DC film, but didn’t offer up any details on what his role may be. Since then, fans have been throwing around all sorts of suggestions, including Black Adam, Doomsday, Darkseid, Cyborg, Green Lantern and of course, Lobo, a character he’s been rumored for since 2012.
With Batman vs. Superman gearing up for production and inching ever-closer to its 2016 release date, we’re left to wonder whether Johnson will appear in Zack Snyder’s upcoming film, or get his own solo feature instead. Of course, until we know what role he’ll be playing, it’s impossible for us to answer that question. Fans can, however, reach out to the actor himself, who took to answering questions on Twitter today and dropped a few DC hints along the way:
Myself & DC have agreed on a character.. extremely complex, well known (but never played) and a pure BAD ASS MF;) #RockTalk .@ThomasEspin
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) March 25, 2014
He further elaborated on this tease during an interview with Badass Digest, saying:
“So, you know, there’s been mutual interest with myself and DC for many years to find the right character. I, like everyone here in the room, love superheroes. So there’s been mutual interest with us for years, and we’ve been having ongoing discussions, myself and DC, for years about the right character, what the right character would be. That’s another thing, too: it had to be right.”
That, of course, gives us absolutely nothing to go on, but Johnson did give us a few character details to help point us in the right direction:
“Here are three qualities. The first quality we were looking for was that he had to be extremely complex and have a lot going on. What that does for me as an actor and the studio is it gives us space that we can explore; his complexities.
The other quality was that he had to — the character we were looking for had to be well-known but never brought to life. Then what that does again as an actor, it gives me a little bit of space, and we talked about personality. It just gives me a chance to put an imprint into his personality, with the set of tools that I could bring to the table and put a very unique twist on his personality, but still pay homage to who he is.
The third thing — and most important — is he had to be a badass motherfucker, okay, and on a Superman level of power, where could throw down. In those three qualities, I’m happy we’ve found that character. Right now, we’re out to a lot of writers.”
Sounds a hell of a lot like Lobo, right? There simply aren’t many other DC characters that fit that bill. From Johnson’s comments we can probably rule out a couple possibilities. Cyborg is out because he doesn’t possess a “Superman level of power,” and Doomsday and Darkseid are also unlikely, because they aren’t necessarily complex characters that Johnson could bring his personality to.
The actor did say that the character could “throw down” with Superman, so could that mean he’s playing a villain? Black Adam would certainly fit the bill, but with no sign of Shazam appearing in the DC cinematic universe anytime soon, I’m not sure. He could possibly fit into whatever universe DC is planning a bit easier than Lobo though, so let’s not rule it out.
We also learned that Johnson won’t be playing Green Lantern, something the actor confirmed later on:
Green Lantern (John Stewart) and Black Adam are my fav superheroes, but GL’s already been made and stamped. #RockTalk @CFitzyy
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) March 25, 2014
So, out of this vague conversation does come one answer. The John Stewart Green Lantern has been a character that fans (including myself) have been clamoring to see for quite a while now, so I hope that Johnson’s comment about GL being “made and stamped” doesn’t mean we’ll see Hal Jordan again instead. Honestly, it’s probably best to put Green Lantern far, far behind us if we’re going to move forward with this new DC universe.
What do you think of what Johnson teased? Are you disappointed that he won’t be playing Green Lantern? Or would you rather see him as Lobo or Black Adam? Sound off in the comments!