After a year of teaser footage, Warner Bros. have released the first full trailer for Black Adam, starring Dwayne Johnson as the DC Comics anti-hero:
The trailer opens with a conversation between Justice Society member Doctor Fate (Kent Nelson, played by Pierce Brosnan) and a captured Black Adam (Teth-Adam), who reveals his past as a slave in Ancient Kahndaq before he was (as he puts it) “reborn a god.” (There’s no sign of the Council of Wizards, whom the first Shazam! film explained gave Adam his powers.) He mentions he had a son who died saving his life, before his rude awakening in the present day, when he massacres a group of armed men accompanying Sarah Shahi’s professor and freedom fighter Adrianna Tomaz.
We’re quickly shown the other Justice Society members — Aldis Hodge’s Hawkman, Noah Centineo’s Atom Smasher, and Quintessa Swindell’s Cyclone — as well as Kent wearing the Helmet of Fate in a wartorn Kahndaq, which is being torn apart by high-tech mercenaries working for Intergang. Adam butts heads with Hawkman, telling him that, unlike the heroes of the modern world, he’s fine with taking lives, something he demonstrates by throwing a hapless goon into the sea, and smashing an F-35 Lightning II. Fate tells Adam he has a choice: he can become the destroyer of the world, or its savior.
The final scene takes us back to Adam’s awakening, as Tomaz and Mohammed Amer’s sidekick try to flee in a van, only to have the immortal hero catch up to them. He’s soon distracted by a projectile explosive, which he picks up and examines out of curiosity before it explodes (harmlessly.)
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Black Adam will be released in theaters on October 21, 2022. It will be followed two months later by Shazam! Fury of the Gods — the second big screen outing for Adam’s future nemesis Billy Batson — on December 21.
