DC's Suicide Squad 2 Might Feature Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's Debut As Black Adam

There has been plenty of news about DC's upcoming Shazam over past few weeks, including confirmation of its release date and cast. One thing we know we won't see in the movie however is Shazam's nemesis Black Adam. The villainous character is to be played in a future DC movie by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, but it has already been confirmed that he won't be part of Shazam.

However, a new rumor suggests that Johnson might make his DC debut in Suicide Squad 2. According to The Wrap's sources, the plot of Suicide Squad 2 will revolve around "members of Suicide Squad [who are] tasked with tracking down a weapon of mass destruction." That weapon is apparenty Black Adam. Johnson himself teased a surprise introduction for the character earlier this year, when he told Fandango: "We have a really cool surprise for Black Adam that I can't reveal, in terms of where we will see Black Adam being introduced."

Suicide Squad 2 does not yet have a confirmed released date, but it is expected to start shooting in 2018. Gavin O'Connor, who previously helmed the Ben Affleck hit The Accountant, will direct.

Johnson first announced that he would play Black Adam back in September 2014. It was revealed earlier this year that Shazam was originally set to include the character, before a decision was made to make a standalone Black Adam movie. Shazam director David Sandberg said: "There have been variations of the script, before I came along, where Black Adam was in and out. But now, this is about Shazam."

Even though we are used to seeing Johnson play more heroic characters, he explained to Digital Spy that the more complex nature of the Black Adam role had drawn him to it. "I just felt Black Adam was inherently more interesting to me because I felt there were more layers to [him], starting out as a slave and then ultimately becoming the anti-hero who we enjoy today."

Black Adam first appeared in 1945 as a one-off villain for a comic book called The Marvel Family, published by Fawcett Comics. He was later licensed by DC, alongside Shazam, and revived in the '70s as an ongoing character. In more recent years he has been portrayed as a more complex anti-hero than an outright bad guy, who will sometimes use his powers for good as well as evil.