Summary
- Black Adam's disappointing box office performance and poor critical reception made it a failure in the eyes of many, despite conflicting reports on its financial success or loss for Warner Bros.
- Subsequent DC movies released after Black Adam performed even worse at the box office, overshadowing the film's initial failure.
- The continuous turmoil and lack of direction in the DCEU, coupled with mediocre movies and inflated budgets, contributed to the struggles of these subsequent releases. Black Adam's failure can be seen as the beginning of the downfall of the franchise.
Black Adam's $393 million box office failure has somehow been made to look like less of a bomb a year after three other DCEU releases. The Dwayne Johnson-led film was released in October 2022 to middling critical reception. The overblown action sequences, lack of a tight script, thin story, and poor character development meant that Black Adam was a disappointment for those excited to see the so-called shift in the hierarchy of the DCEU's power.
This reaction led to a poor commercial run for the film, made even worse by its billing as the first step in an exciting new direction for DC. What was expected to lead into Black Adam 2's story and the resurrection of the DCEU instead heralded the beginning of the end for the franchise given the announcement of James Gunn's DC Universe reboot only a week after the film's release. Despite the failure of Black Adam which saw only a $393 million worldwide gross against a $260 million budget, subsequent releases from the DCEU in the year after the film's release somehow shine a more positive light on the Johnson-led blockbuster.