Dwayne Johnson Is Playing DC Comics Supervillain Black Adam

Dwayne Johnson has been promoting his forthcoming role in the Warner Bros./New Line Cinema/DC Comics superhero film Shazam, but it's been unclear whether he'd be playing the titular protagonist or his enemy Black Adam. As the title of this article suggests, he'll playing Black Adam the bad guy of the film, and that seems like the better option to me.
Rarely have we been given the chance to see Johnson play the role of an antagonist (though he was sorta kinda one in Fast Five, as the head of New Line Cinema pointed out yesterday), so it's nice that Shazam will give him the chance to play a different role than usual. I do hope that Johnsons involvement in the project as the villain means that the main character of the film, Shazam, doesn't go underdeveloped, but Johnsons Twitter announcement of him having the role does suggest there'll be some nuance in the character of Black Adam.

Shazam isn't one of DC's more popular characters, but the company is smartly taking a cue from Marvel and their astounding ability to turn Groot into a worldwide phenomenon and start creating cinematic incarnations of lesser known superheroes. That's a great idea, and casting someone as cool as Johnson (whose summer 2014 feature Hercules is a messy, but surprisingly fun adventure) is a good sign for the forthcoming project. No release date is set for the film, but I'd wager this kind of major casting indicates the film could take up the August 2016 release date DC recently acquired.