Dwayne Johnson recently revealed that he recently cried during Braveheart. (Or rather, he got “misty-eyed,” which is close enough.) Now he has another reason to tear up: Black Adam, his superhero movie-verse debut, has overcome so-so reviews to give him the best leading man opening of his career.
As per Deadline, the latest DCEU entry — with Johnson as a semi-hero with godlike powers who does a lot of near-R-rated killing — is on track to open with a whopping $67 million from domestic theaters alone. That pushes it ahead of some of his other biggest openers. The record was previously held by Hobbs & Shaw ($60 million), in which he was co-lead with Jason Statham. It was also bigger than Jumanji: The Next Level ($59 million) and San Andreas ($54 million). Heck, it was nearly $15 million more than another DCEU episode, Shazam!, to which it’s closely related ($53).
Mind you, this isn’t the biggest opener ever for a movie with Dwayne Johnson. Those ones just tend to have the words “Fast” and/or “Furious” in the titles. In those films, Johnson is simply part of the ensemble — or was, partly because of his beef with Vin Diesel, which Johnson is apparently not ready to end. But it seems he’s doing just fine on his own.
(Via Deadline)