Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam bombs at box office, expected to post almost Rs 820 crore in losses

With a massive production budget of $195 million, DC's Black Adam is expected to lose around $100 million, significantly denting star Dwayne Johnson's reputation as a crowd-puller.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | December 6, 2022 10:30 AM IST

3 min read

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Dwayne Johnson in a scene from "Black Adam." (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

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The marketing campaign for Black Adam was mounted on the promise that the film would topple the ‘hierarchy of power’ within the DC Extended Universe. But after more than a month in release, the film is looking at massive financial losses that blemish not only the DC brand, but also brand Dwayne Johnson.

One of the world’s highest-paid movie stars, Johnson had been attached to Black Adam for over a decade, and has shepherded the project to the big screen diligently. But with a worldwide gross of just $387 million (Rs 3100 crore), the film is expected to lose Warner Bros around $100 million (Rs 820 crore), according to Variety. The biggest reason behind these losses isn’t the relatively solid gross, but the film’s massive budget, which is reported to be $195 million (Rs 1600 crore). Add another $100 million for marketing, and the film’s break-even point rises to $600 million (nearly Rs 5000 crore).

Also read | Black Adam movie review: This Dwayne Johnson film ain’t all bad

The reported cited sources within the studio as disputing the marketing spend, claiming instead that the figure was around the $80 million mark. Typically, theatres pocket half of a film’s box office grosses, meaning that any movie should ideally make back over twice its budget theatrically to turn a profit. But in the post-pandemic era, certain established norms have been altered. For instance, revenue from ancillary sources such as video-on-demand has increased owing to shorter theatrical windows.

Black Adam is estimated to make $25 million to $35 million from digital sales, but it still won’t turn a profit before it arrives on HBO Max in the near future. It’s underperforming not only in comparison to most other DCEU films, but also some of Johnson’s mid-level hits. The star’s biggest movies remain the two Jumanji sequels, but even San Andreas and Rampage earned more globally than Black Adam.

Marvel, on the other hand, is in a different league, with both Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder earning hundreds of millions more than Black Adam. The film ended with a tease of a showdown between the titular antihero and Henry Cavill’s Superman, whose return was used as a major marketing tool. But it remains to be seen how the series will proceed under the leadership of James Gunn and Peter Safran.

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