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The details of Black Adam and its box office numbers are being unraveled daily. The Rock had huge hopes for the film, but it didn't fly as high as any of the live-action Marvel-DC movies of the year. However, he is now being accused of fraud in a new report that could dent his reputation.
Initially, THR reported that Black Adam needed to earn $600 million to make profits. However, with its $388 million worldwide numbers, it would suffer a loss of around $100 million. After their report, Dwayne Johnson tried to control the fire by sharing Deadline's article, which stated that the movie is profitable. However, now he is being accused of faking the numbers.
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Black Adam's earning and budget across several reports
Black Adam's total cost was almost $300 million as it had a production budget of $195 million, and about $100 million was spent on marketing. As the theater chains get a rough cut of 50% of every ticket sold, WB Discovery would end up with somewhere between 180-$190 million.
Deadline and The Rock claimed that after factoring in all the revenue from PVOD rentals and streaming releases, the film would make a profit of $52 million. Many fans questioned these numbers, and now a report from Puck's Matt Belloni states that the numbers reported by Deadline are misleading.
Belloni revealed in a newsletter that according to "several Warners executives," Johnson and his team leaked the story of Black Adam's earnings to Deadline. According to Belloni, the information they leaked was "filled with false assumptions." The actual PVOD/streaming revenue isn't as reported.
It'll be interesting to see if Johnson and co counter these claims as well.
Why does The Rock still claim that his movie is a success?
Whether or not Black Adam breaks even or turns in a profit with its PVOD earnings, it is still quite embarrassing for the movie to be salvaged by earnings beyond the theaters. Johnson still claims it changed the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe because he wants the franchise to continue. The Rock's desperate attempts come in to greenlight Black Adam 2, just as he had initially promised.
The power hierarchy in the DC Universe has truly changed as James Gunn, and Peter Safran are now in charge of the DCU. Rumors suggest they are looking to reboot the entire "DCEU" while moving forward with future DC Studios films.
Initially, Dwayne Johnson was courting this job as he wanted the reigns of DC's future. That hasn't happened, and his movie hasn't produced any box office-shattering numbers either. With him and James Gunn not acknowledging each other, it is likely that a sequel to the Man in Black may not happen at all.
After all, The Rock may also want to act as a producer. But that may be out of his reach at the moment.
