None of us can deny that Dwayne Johnson is a great guy; you need only take a quick look at his social media channels for proof of that. However, the Hollywood A-Lister is also still a pro wrestler at heart, and he knows both how to make fans believe what he wants them to and how to sell the projects he works on as, perhaps, bigger hits than they really are.
That's definitely been the case with Black Adam. The movie has received mostly negative reviews from critics and, while it marked one of the best openings of Johnson's career, it's on track to make roughly the same as Shazam!, a movie that cost half as much to produce. Despite that, it's often been touted as a huge win for the DC brand online.
While not always fair, comparing the box office totals of similar movies is an inevitability among fans and analysts alike. It's no wonder then that we've seen many headlines pointing out that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever managed to earn more in a single weekend than Black Adam has in its entire theatrical run since being released last month.
Now, in a somewhat uncharacteristic social media post from The Rock, he recently took to Twitter to respond to a Tweet from IGN comparing the performances of both movies.
Starting by suggesting they may be biased, the actor would go on to say that there's no competition between Black Adam and Black Panther, primarily because the latter is an established global brand. We can't argue that point, though it might be a stretch to say no one had heard of Black Adam and the Justice Society of America a year ago.
Ultimately, there are a number of reasons why Black Adam underperformed, but Black Panther was also a relatively unknown character prior to his 2018 movie. Despite a cameo in Captain America: Civil War prior to that solo outing, the blockbuster featured no one with the same star power as Johnson and earned over $1 billion and an Oscar nomination.
So, is it still unfair to compare the two franchises? We'll let you decide.
Both Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Black Adam are now playing in theaters.