Black Adam, the latest entry in the DCEU directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan, Jungle Cruise), famously took nearly 20 years to come to fruition. It was in 2007 when, during an interview with Slash Film, Dwayne Johnson revealed that he wouldn't be playing Shazam, whom he was originally approached to portray. Instead, he would bring to life the characters' nemesis, Black Adam:
"I just met with [original 'Shazam' director Peter Segal] last night. It was a great meeting on 'Shazam.' We're just waiting for John August to hand in another draft, which will probably be handed in months from now because of the strike. [...] And not Shazam but Black Adam—that's now very clear. He's a character that I can't wait to play. When they first approached me about playing Captain Marvel, they said there is also this interesting character called Black Adam. This was about a year ago on the set of 'Get Smart.' I said 'Oh, Okay, Great.'"
Luckily, Black Adam 2 will not take as long as its predecessor to materialize. During an interview with Comicbook.com, Black Adam producers Beau Flynn and Hiram Garcia revealed that a sequel is expected to arrive fairly soon.
As Flynn noted: "Don't worry. This one will be fast." Hiram Garcia then stated: "It's not going to take that long. I can promise you that. We always hope the first domino's the easy one. [...] We'll get cooking on it fast, that's for sure." Flynn added: "We will open up the magic wagon, we'll have the script ready, pretty fast."
Following that, YouTuber John Campea claimed that he heard from sources that the script for Black Adam 2 is actually finished. It's important to take the last bit with a grain of salt. Regardless, though, it appears that a Black Adam sequel is being fast-tracked.
How Likely Is It For Black Adam 2 To Happen?
The question that arises from the producers' comments is whether or not Black Adam will be successful enough to warrant a sequel. Fortunately, the film is off to a promising start, with an estimated $60-$62 million domestic opening weekend—$7-9 million higher than Shazam!'s opening in 2019. The sum could point to the film ending with a relatively modest box-office haul, but that should not deter the producers of Black Adam from moving forward with a sequel.
Due to films like Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: No Way Home and, to a lesser degree, The Batman, superhero movies are typically burdened with the expectation of becoming box-office juggernauts. However, as the genre grows and studios tap into more obscure characters, it's natural for audiences not to instantly gravitate toward a project simply because it stars a comic book character.
Films like The Incredible Hulk ($358 million worldwide adjusted for inflation), Captain America: The First Avenger ($480 million adjusted for inflation) and Thor ($582 million adjusted for inflation) weren't financial juggernauts at the time of their release because general audiences were not very familiar—if at all—with their titular characters. The movies were building blocks for what would become mainstream properties.
Though subsequent first films based on little-known heroes from Marvel Studios have found great financial success since, that could be attributed to them being associated with the Marvel brand. Despite having various hits under its belt, the DCEU has not necessarily developed an identifiable brand for general audiences to associate its projects with. As such, it makes sense for a first film based on Black Adam, who isn't well-recognized outside of comic book circles, to have a somewhat modest box-office haul.
Warner Bros. and the producers behind Black Adam could be taking this into consideration. As such, even if the film's final worldwide gross ends up being slightly more than Shazam!, or something akin to Ant-Man's total earnings ($519 worldwide), it would probably still be enough for WB to greenlight more Teth-Adam-centered projects. After all, Black Adam cost $195 million to make (via Variety), which lessens its threshold for financial success.
There is also the fact that Black Adam's relatively modest opening could lead to a very successful box-office run. A major precedent for that is Aquaman, which, following a domestic opening of $67 million, went on to gross $1.1 billion worldwide. Taking that into consideration, Black Adam has the potential to end up becoming a big hit for DC and Warner Bros.
Black Adam is currently playing in theaters.