Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wants to be bigger than Black Adam. During an interview with Men’s Journal, the 49-year-old former professional wrestler explained why he wants to buff up even more than his comic book counterpart.
“The training we did for this movie was the most arduous I’ve ever done in my life,” said Johnson. His goal was to surpass the comic book physiques drawn by Black Adam illustrators and bring a level of authenticity to his portrayal.
“I promise you this: The hierarchy of power in the DC universe is about to change.”
Of course, Johnson has been attached to the Black Adam movie for a long time. So long, in fact, that you might even call this a bit of a passion project.
“I started training for Black Adam when I came out of the womb,” he said. “I believe I was born to play this character. But in all honesty, this project has been with me for 10 ten years now. The process began when we started to stand the material up and really developed it into what it is present day.”
“Once the start date was agreed on by our Seven Bucks production company, the rest of my team, Warner Bros. Studio, and DC Comics, I started to build an exhaustive training program with my coach Dave Rienzi,” he added.
Black Adam is certainly going to need to be in good shape. After all, he’s going to be taking on the Justice Society of America.
And if Johnson has his way, he’ll take on Superman, too.
“Getting the greenlight for Black Adam was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to raise the bar yet again,” he explained. “I wanted to come into this in the best shape of my career.”
Aside from Black Adam, Johnson is going to be pretty busy over the next few years.
He recently revealed that he’s set to star in another video game movie, and is also voicing Krypto the Wonder Dog in the upcoming League of Super-Pets movie. Additionally, it looks as though Johnson will be back for Netflix’s upcoming Red Notice sequels.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
