Dwayne Johnson Laughs Off ‘Black Panther’ vs ‘Black Adam’ Box Office Comparison: ‘We’re New Babies and Have to Grow’

“There’s no competition with the established global brand of ‘Black Panther,'” actor tweeted to IGN

Black Adam Dwayne Johnson Black Panther Wakanda Forever Letitia Wright
Dwayne Johnson in "Black Adam" (Warner Bros.) and Letitia Wright in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" (Marvel Studios)

Dwayne Johnson is laughing off comparisons between his DC blockbuster “Black Adam” and Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which has already exceeded his film’s global box office total by nearly $200 million.

On Friday, IGN posted a tweet noting that “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” had crossed the $400 million mark heading into its second weekend in theaters. In less than a week, it had already eclipsed the global total of “Black Adam,” which was released in late October and has made $366 million worldwide after a month in theaters.

But Johnson dismissed such comparisons, saying that beating a sequel to the first superhero film to get nominated for Best Picture was not the standard for box office success for his film.

“I love competing, but @IGN you guys are in the biz with us there’s no competition with the established global brand of Black Panther compared to Black Adam & JSA who a year ago no one even heard of,” Johnson tweeted. “No need to knock us, we’re new babies and have to grow.”

While such comparisons between the two films may not be appropriate, there’s no denying that “Black Adam” has significantly fallen short of the expectations that it faced as a $195 million DC blockbuster starring one of Hollywood’s most prominent action stars.

As we noted on WrapPRO, the $67 million opening of “Black Adam” provided an optimistic start as Johnson’s fans turned out in strong numbers for a film in which they were more interested in seeing the actor than the comic book antihero he was playing.

But in the following weeks, “Black Adam” flopped as poor critical reviews and only so-so audience word-of-mouth sapped interest in a film that Johnson promised would “change the hierarchy” of the DC Universe. The film has just now passed the $365 million total of DC’s spring 2019 film “Shazam!” which starred Zachary Levi as Black Adam’s superhero nemesis and which was produced on a budget of around $100 million, roughly half the budget of “Black Adam.”

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” meanwhile, will turn a substantial theatrical profit, though it will not come close to the $1.34 billion of its 2018 predecessor. While much stronger audience buzz is expected to carry the sequel to a strong $450-500 million domestic total, sagging overseas performance due to factors like the FIFA World Cup and the lack of a release in China and Russia are likely to keep the film’s final global total somewhere in the $800 million range.


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