As has been teased, the upcoming Dwyane Johnson-led DC Comics film adaptation “Black Adam” follows a character without the morality of the DCEU’s other solo film leads.
The anti-hero has no compunction about killing people. In fact, Noah Centineo, who plays Atom Smasher in the film, told Esquire recently that Johnson’s character racks up a hell of a lot of collateral damage throughout the movie.
Certainly a big part of the film’s appeal is that it serves as an exploration of morality when it comes to superpowered beings, and it leaves the interpretation open to the audience – something that helps sets it apart from other DC films of this type:
“This film has teeth, though it is a fantastic, marvellous, extraordinary superhero film. Ive been told it has the highest body count of any superhero film so far. That may not be a great thing, but that’s the idea. We question morality with this film, but we never side with either opinion. We leave it open-ended.”
That’s a bold claim on the body count considering James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” and “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” both racked up big body counts in the DC-verse.
Centineo also revealed he had to do a lot of performance capture for the Atom Smasher scenes in the movie and so he got in touch with motion capture veteran Andy Serkis who offered a “lot of advice and a lot of help”.
Asked about any potential DC future for his character, he revealed he hasn’t been told anything at this time:
“No, at this point we haven’t been told anything. I don’t know if that’s a thing, but I know everyone’s excited, especially at DC and Warner. And when we were in production, so was every actor on that set… I know that we’re eager to do more across the board. And if people want to see more, we’re all in on this.”
The film also stars Pierce Brosnan, Aldis Hodge, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindel, Bodhi Sabongui and Djimon Hounsou. “Black Adam” premieres in cinemas on Friday, October 21st.
