‘Black Adam’ is Dwayne Johnson’s biggest domestic box-office debut as a leading man, but it’s his seventh best overall.
How many times in the past decade has someone like Dwayne Johnson, who could be the face of an action franchise or who would be a star in any number of movies, been handed more money and more opportunities than he was prepared to handle?
He took on the role as “The Rock” in 2010’s “Takers” and played a similar character in the movies “The Fast and the Furious” and “Pain and Gain.” He also starred in the TV show “The Chicago Code” and took the lead in “Rocky.”
The last two were big box-office hits, in part because of Johnson’s presence in the movies, and his acting range. It also wasn’t just Johnson’s acting range that made his movies successful: He had the right combination of the physical and sexual elements.
“Black Adam” is Johnson in his biggest box-office debut as a leading man, but it’s one of his biggest box-office debuts overall. It came in at No. 2, behind “Finding Dory,” his first animated film, which brought in $1.08 billion globally.
It was also No. 13 on the worldwide chart. The biggest domestic grosser of 2014 was “The Avengers,” which made $1 billion. “Black Adam” probably won’t even come close to that unless it takes in more than $140 million, which would leave it well within the top five on its own.
But that’s not even the top-grossing film in the Johnson franchise. Last summer, Disney opened its first “Doom” movie, which was Johnson’s fourth as a leading man, but it did only $89.8 million worldwide. The rest of the Johnson-led franchises, with the exception of “John Wick:” Chapter 2, have all opened below $100 million worldwide: “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” which Johnson starred in; “John Wick,” which Johnson directed and also starred in; and the two “Doom” movies, which Johnson was the executive producer on with his wife, Blake, and Will Packer, before the split.
“Black Adam,” though, opened at No. 3, which is a solid opening
