Black Adam has continued to dominate a relatively quiet box office in its third week and will retain the top spot with a projected $17 million added to its current gross. While the Dwayne Johnson-led DCU movie has some way to go to breaking into the top ten of the year’s highest grossing worldwide movies, Black Adam has been a huge success compared to many other movies and as the self-proclaimed cornerstone of the new DCU roadmap that is something that will come as a relief to Warner Bros. Discovery.

Dwayne Johnson’s debut as the DC anti-hero opened with a decent enough first weekend, and crossed $100 million mark domestically during its second. However, the reviews of the movie have not been quite as encouraging, especially from a critic point of view. Like many of the most popular movies of the last couple of years, the difference between audience scores, critic reviews and box office takings has been an ongoing inconsistency within the film industry. The general consensus among critics is that Black Adam is a “wildly uneven letdown” but despite that the pull of Johnson’s presence has been enough to get audiences coming out to theaters in numbers.

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Of course, Black Adam has been helped in a small part by the now well-known cameo appearance by Henry Cavill in his return as Superman. Even though the film may not have touched anywhere near Marvel’s recent movies, or even other DC movie The Batman, it promises much to come from the DCU and that seems to be its main purpose this Fall.

Will Black Adam vs Superman Save The DCU?

     Warner Bros. Pictures

The setup of a coming clash between Black Adam and Superman has certainly got people talking about the future of the DCU. While it seems that there will be a bit of a wait for the showdown between these two powerhouses of DC Comics, the newly formed DC Studios will be looking to make the DCU a big player again under the overseeing eyes of James Gunn and Peter Safran.

Dwayne Johnson has spent the best part of a year declaring that Black Adam would change the hierarchy of the DCU and although there is a long way to go before that happens, Black Adam’s successful dominance at the box office will be a very encouraging sign for Warner Bros. Discovery. However, over the last couple of weeks the focus of everyone’s attention has not been on Black Adam himself.

The biggest take-away from Black Adam has certainly been the return of Cavill’s Man of Steel, something that only apparently happened thanks to the persistence of Johnson to get what he wants no matter what he has to do to get it. He wanted Cavill to return to his Superman role, and in bypassing then-DC Films president Walter Hamada, Johnson got his wish and has managed to set up the biggest clash in the history of the DCU.