Dwayne Johnson Believes 'Shazam' Could Be Released Early

Fans who were looking forward to Dwayne Johnson playing a comic book character were probably a little disappointed when Warner Bros. released their big, upcoming, DC schedule last year. Among all the huge movies and announcements was the fact Johnson's Black Adam wouldn't appear until 2019 when Shazam hit theaters.

A few months back though, Johnson suggested that release date might be moved forward and now he's at it again. The actor believes Shazam will be released earlier than 2019. Read about the potential Shazam release date change below.

Johnson first started saying he believes Shazam would be out early in February, in an interview with MTV. Here's him reiterating that sentiment recently while promoting San Andreas. (It's at 1:35)

Johnson's exact quote is as follows:

No, I don't think it is going to be that far away. It's going to be earlier than that. I don't think 2019.

Again, this isn't the first time Johnson has said this. He said it a few months back too, so he obviously believes the Shazam script will be good enough to move up, or has heard that from Warner Bros. executives.

I'm more interested in the larger implications of Johnson's statement though. If Shazam does get made and released before 2019, what moves back? They've already got two movies planned each year starting in 2016 and Shazam was supposed to be released the same year as Justice League Part Two. Couldn't that change what happens in Justice League? Moving up just one of these movies will surely create some kind of domino effect.

To recap, there's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad in 2016, Wonder Woman and Justice League Part One in 2017, The Flash and Aquaman in 2018, then Shazam and Justice League Part Two in 2019 followed by Cyborg and Green Lantern in 2020.

The most obviously thing would just to release three movies in a year instead of two. But assuming they are bound by the two per year rule, here's a potential scenario. With Zack Snyder still working on Batman v Superman, he's not going to get to work on Justice League any time soon. 2017 might be difficult to hit. So maybe Shazam get pushed into 2017 taking over the Justice League Part One slot, then that gets bumped into 2018 and The Flash goes into 2019. This way audiences would get Justice League movies in back to back years, which would rival Marvel's plan for Avengers: Infinity War.

Do you think there will be a Shazam release date change?