'Black Adam': Jaume Collet-Serra Might Direct Dwayne Johnson In Long-Brewing Superhero Movie

Jaume Collet-Serra, director of The Shallows, is the top choice to direct Dwayne Johnson in Black Adam. The Warner Bros. DC film is supposedly tied directly into this year's Shazam!, and would star Johnson as a villainous character who faces off against Shazam in the comics. Johnson has been attached to the project since 2008, and there was some question about whether the movie would ever see the light of day. Now, on the heels of Shazam!, it looks like Warner Bros. and New Line are ready to get serious.The Observer broke the news about Jaume Collet-Serra as the frontrunner to helm Black Adam. Collet-Serra's credits include Orphan, House of Wax, The Shallows, and The Commuter. He also directed Disney's upcoming Jungle Cruise, which stars Dwayne Johnson. Perhaps Johnson liked working with Collet-Serra so much that he pushed him for the Black Adam gig. Back in 2017, Adam Sztykiel was announced as the Black Adam movie screenwriter, but its unclear if his draft is the one that will be used, or if a new script has come together since then.

Regarding the Black Adam movie, Johnson previously said:

"It's a challenging thing because when Marvel is doing such an incredible job of universe building and building out, and DC is doing a great job in finding the footing and tone of their movies – certainly with Wonder Woman, for example, I look forward to James Wan's movie coming out with Aquaman – so Black Adam is this phenomenal opportunity for us to nail the tone and make sure he's badass. Make sure that we're serving the mythology properly. But then also making sure that we can have intrinsic DNA tied to a lot of other properties in DC. It's not an easy thing to do, but I think we're going to nail it."

According to the DC Wiki, "Black Adam was an ancient Egyptian slave who received the powers of the Wizard Shazam. However he was imprisoned for millennia by the Wizard after he misused his powers. He was eventually freed in the modern day where he went on to battle the Wizard's new champion Billy Batson many times." Black Adam didn't appear in Shazam, but he was apparently briefly mentioned by the Wizard, played by Djimon Hounsou.

I'll admit that I know next to nothing about Black Adam as a character, but I'm a huge fan of Collet-Serra's highly-stylized work, which immediately makes me interested in this project. At one point, Collet-Serra's name was being thrown around as a potential Suicide Squad 2 director, so Warner Bros. and DC must be keen to work with him.