Dwayne Johnson’s ‘Black Adam’ Tracking for Bullish $70M-$75M Opening

If tracking is correct, Black Adam should bestow Dwayne Johnson with the biggest box office opening of his career, outside of the main Fast & Furious franchise.

The New Line/Warner Bros. release is pacing to debut anywhere between $70 million to $75 million in its domestic debut over the Oct. 21-23 weekend — if not higher. Sources with access to tracking say the surveys show that Black Adam is similar in strength to Sony’s origin movie Venom, which opened to $80 million in early October 2018.

If tracking and box office analysts are being more conservative in suggesting an opening shy of Venom’s for Black Adam, it’s because the box office is still in pandemic recovery mode.

The movie is the first live-action superhero pic that Johnson has starred in.

Black Adam reunites Johnson with his Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra, and will feature a team of heroes new to the DC films: the Justice Society of America. That includes Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo) and Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan). As for Johnson, he plays Black Adam — an antihero imbued with ancient power.

Johnson made a rare appearance at Comic-Con in late July to plug Black Adam, prompting hoots and hollers throughout Hall H.

In more recent days, Johnson personally stopped by SoFi Stadium to introduce a new trailer for Black Adam at the Los Angeles Rams-Buffalo Bills game that kicked off the 2022 NFL regular season. The fresh look at the DC film also aired on NBC’s broadcast of Thursday Night Football.

Black Adam hopes to provide a needed boost of confidence for the box office after a worrisome slowdown in August and September following a summer boom. Superhero films in particular have fared well throughout the pandemic era.

Johnson was last in theaters this summer when voicing the lead role in Warners’ DC League of Super-Pets.