The Rock Has Given Up On Black Adam

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, star of Black Adam, has unfollowed the film's Instagram account and the official DCU account, distancing himself from his own movie.

By Chris Snellgrove | Published

dwayne johnson black adam

Previously, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was giving it his all to promote Black Adam, a movie that seemed destined for spinoffs. In addition to starring as the title character, the charismatic actor kept going the extra mile to promote the film. Now, though, according to Twitter account HomeofDCU, the upset actor has stopped following both the Black Adam and Warner Bros. Discovery Instagram accounts, leading many to conclude that the actor has given up on Black Adam entirely.

Arguably, all of this started in April of this year. The Rock attended a single meeting focused on how to market Black Adam to the public. The actor went on to make five separate Instagram posts about how the meeting was all kinds of awesome. And in one of those five different posts, The Rock announced that marketing was one of his primary passions.

While fans at the time dismissed all of this as fluffy hype for Black Adam, The Rock may have been telling the truth about his love of marketing. After all, his ability to effortlessly market his own charisma helped launch him from wrestling fame into bona fide Hollywood superstardom. He loaned some of his marketing mojo to Warner Bros. when the movie began filming by infamously posting to Instagram that “The hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is about to change.”

For the past couple of years, it was easy to dunk on this comment because of how earnest it was. Now, ironically, The Rock seems to have stopped following official accounts on Instagram because of a different change to “the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe.” And that change can be summed up in two words: James Gunn.

dwayne johnson black adam
The Rock in action as Black Adam

Gunn is the co-CEO and co-chairman of DC Studios, and he’s making some big changes to the DC universe as we know it. Perhaps the biggest news recently is that Henry Cavill will no longer be playing Superman in future films. This was very disappointing to fans, especially because Cavill appeared as Superman in a post-credits Black Adam scene, giving fans hope for seeing more of Cavill in this role.

Why, then, would The Rock stop following official accounts for both Warner Bros. and Black Adam? Some fans think the movie’s poor performance, along with news of Cavill getting ousted, annoyed the former wrestler. It was The Rock who pushed for Black Adam to fight other characters rather than the goofy Shazam (his comic book nemesis), and he was likely looking for his own Batman v. Superman-type movie where he squared off with Cavill.

However, it could be as simple as James Gunn ditching most veteran actors (with the notable exception of Margot Robbie) of the franchise in order to reboot everything and finally create a rival to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We don’t yet know how Ezra Miller’s Flash movie will feature in this, nor do we know if Matt Reeves’ Batman will be connected to a larger universe. But it seems like Black Adam (star of the worst opening weekend for DC), doesn’t feature in Gunn’s future plans, and that means DC no longer features in The Rock’s own plans.