Any dreams DCU fans had of seeing two iconic comic book archenemies go toe-to-toe on the big screen went up in smoke when James Gunn and Peter Safran decided that Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam wasn’t worth keeping around as the franchise underwent its latest creative and personnel overhaul.
Not that The Rock sounded too interested in tangling with Zachary Levi’s Shazam anyway, seeing as various reports claimed that even though he produced David F. Sandberg’s candy-colored capers through his Seven Bucks banner, he didn’t have a shred of interest in staring down Billy Batson’s superpowered alter ego when Henry Cavill’s Superman was right there for the taking.
However, in a turn of events that sums up the smoking embers of the DCU’s current iteration, Shazam and Black Adam are finally engaging in a cinematic battle to the death… to see which one of them ends up as the saga’s lowest-rated solo blockbuster ever. Not quite what anyone had in mind, but a showdown is a showdown at the end of the day.
As things stand, Black Adam is the worst-reviewed DCU movie with a single title character, thanks to a Rotten Tomatoes score of 39 percent. Fury of the Gods is closing in, though, after an increasing number of reviews tipped the scales of apathy, with Sandberg’s sophomore outing currently sinking downwards with a 55 percent approval rating at the time of writing.
Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice remain at the bottom of the pile with 26 and 29 percent ratings (dis)respectively, but obviously they focus on more than one hero and can’t justifiably be called solo films. It’s Black Adam vs. Shazam, Jim, but not as we know it.