Director of the Rock’s ‘Black Adam’ Worked to Ensure Film Is a ‘Disruptor’ for Future of Superhero Moviemaking

Dwayne Johnson’s first starring superhero role will arrive next July in Black Adam, and director Jaume Collet-Serra—who just helmed the Rock’s Jungle Cruise—believes their mutual DC Extended Universe debut will change the way superhero movies are made.

For a Total Film cover story, Collet-Serra discussed how Black Adam will expand the DCEU and touched on how the way it was shot will influence cinema moving forward.

“Black Adam is a disruptor in the DC Comics world, and it has to be a disruptor in the way that we make a superhero movie,” the director said. “I like to be challenged, and I wanted to create new technology, so we developed the way that [Adam] moves, the way that he flies, his costume. And then it trickled down to every other character and the movie itself. But there was always the goal—to be new and unique in the storytelling and in every aspect of it.”

One of the biggest critiques against DC’s big screen output has been the overuse of CGI effects, like Steppenwolf in the theatrical Justice League, who looked much better in Zack Snyder’s cut, or the infamous digitized disappearance of Henry Cavill’s mustache.

In the teaser for Black Adam shared at DC FanDome in October, Johnson looks sleek as the character, and there’s memorably a brief shot of him hovering and vaporizing a soldier.

Before this year’s Jungle Cruise team-up with Johnson, Emily Blunt, and Disney, Collet-Serra’s filmmaking career features dates back to 2005’s House of Wax and includes The Shallows, Run All Night, Non-Stop, and Orphan.

Collet-Serra also said in the interview that he’s excited to introduce OG DC characters like Hawkman, Atom Smasher, Cyclone, and Doctor Fate into the DCEU with Black Adam, and that he feels the results will be pivotal in pushing the universe, and the superhero genre, to new places.

Written by Rory Haines, Sohrab Noshirvani, and Adam Sztykiel, Black Adam hits July 29, 2022.