Culture June 8, 2022

Dwayne Johnson shares 'Black Adam' trailer: 'This passion project has become my DNA'

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Dwayne Johnson goes god mode in the new trailer for "Black Adam," the eagerly anticipated film featuring DC Comics' anti-hero of the same name.

The character, who appeared first as a one-off villain in 1945, has since become a fixture in the DC Universe. In the forthcoming film, the character is freed from the tomb in which he had been imprisoned thousands of years earlier, after he received the powers of the Egyptian gods and overthrew the pharaoh to take his place.

"I was a slave until I died. Then I was re-born a god ... now I kneel before no one," Johnson's character says in the trailer.

In the movie, Johnson's impossibly powerful figure, banished to a distant star in the original comics, ends up back on Earth, where he meets up with heroes including Hawkman, played by Aldis Hodge; Atom Smasher, played by Noah Centineo; Cyclone, played by Quintessa Swindell; and Doctor Fate, played by Pierce Brosnan.

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Adam's outlook on life doesn't exactly gel with the usual superhero type.

"In this world, you have heroes, and there are villains. Heroes don't kill people," Hawkman tells him in one scene from the trailer.

"Well, I do," Adam responds.

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Elsewhere in the trailer, Doctor Fate tells Adam that his future vision had shown him Adam will eventually need to choose between being "the destroyer of this world" or its savior.

"That's up to you," he says.

Along the way, the trailer shows Johnson's character dispatching all manner of bad guys -- including one who tries to use a metal baton on Adam's head, resulting in the baton bending in half, and another being hurled miles away into the sea.

Johnson has been vocal about his love for the film and its potential impact on the DC Universe.

"This passion project has become my DNA and the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe will change," Johnson told his millions of Instagram followers Wednesday morning. "The world needed a hero. It got BLACK ADAM."

"Black Adam" flies into theaters Oct. 21.