Black Adam starring Dwayne Johnson arrived on the HBO Max streaming platform, and hits number one among trending and viewership numbers in its first week.
Johnson made great strides towards marketing Black Adam as the film where the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe would change. However, the timing of the film’s release just a few weeks before Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, may have pulled the rug under its potential box office returns. And with the sweeping changes being made by DC Studios Co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran, it seems the time of the Man in Black is all but over.
But what do the numbers say with regard to Black Adam’s performance on HBO Max? Read on for the details.
Reports from multiple sources tracking the performance of movies on HBO Max have verified that Black Adam is topping the charts. One such source is Flix Patrol.
According to the charts on Flix Patrol, the DCEU superhero film starring Dwayne 'The Rock" Johnson garnered the most viewership during the 51st week of 2022. Per the description on Flix Patrol’s site:
FlixPatrol provides VOD charts and streaming ratings worldwide. You can find here all the Netflix charts (Netflix TOP 10 or what is Trending on Netflix), iTunes charts, Amazon Prime charts and HBO charts. These movie charts are based on the official trending or the most popular movies on VOD.
Based on the details on the site’s tracking for Week 51 of 2022, Black Adam dominated the HBO Max streaming movies. Behind the superhero film on the top 5 of the charts are The Banshees of Inisherin, Call Me Miss Cleo, Elf, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Another source, Samba TV, reported that 1.2 Million U.S. households watched HBO Max in just three days since its arrival on the streaming platform.
1.2M US households watched the HBO Max debut of #BlackAdam starring @TheRock over the weekend.
Gen Z households over-indexed by 6% for the new #DCEU flick.#SambaTVInsights #DCStudios #DCUniverse #DC pic.twitter.com/RbJlH8o9dC
— Samba TV (@samba_tv) December 20, 2022
Meanwhile, Variety reported that Black Adam was the top trending movie for the week of December 12 to 18. Clearly, while the box office results were something of a disappointment (largely due to being banned in China and in some areas of the Middle East where Dwayne Johnson is hugely popular), the film is still making waves and bringing in significant return of investment. Given that Johnson himself stated that Black Adam is actually profitable, this should come as no surprise.
But now that the future of a Black Adam sequel or the DCEU continuing is all but dead after DC Studios Co-CEO James Gunn made controversial announcements, what impact does this make?
Black Adam being a hit on the HBO Max streaming service is certainly a win for the film after falling short of studio expectations at the box office when it hit theaters. But developing the film wasn't cheap, as some reports state it costed around $200 million (excluding additional marketing costs).
This, of course, does not scale well compared to The Batman, which grossed over $770 million globally earlier this year. Black Adam, on the other hand, ended its theatrical run with around $390 million at the international box office. While this gross is respectable, it is lower than what Warner Bros. Discovery was likely expecting it to do.
During the film’s press rounds, Johnson would often mention that Black Adam took around 15 years to prepare as a passion project. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, the film also featured the live action film debut of the Justice Society of America, with Aldis Hodge as Hawkman, Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher, Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone, and Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate.
The film follows Teth-Adam’s story after being in stasis for 5000 years and being released from that magical prison to battle Intergang, a criminal organization that took over the nation of Kahndaq. Most fans praised the entertainment value of the DCEU film, and lauded the cameo of Henry Cavill being back as Superman during the mid-credits scene.
The scene seemingly teased an upcoming sequel that will see the two heavy-hitter superheroes squaring off, with Cavill also appearing in many other projects. But Peter Safran and James Gunn had other plans for DC Studios, canceling Cavill's Superman return, as well as nixing the third Wonder Woman film set to star Gal Gadot and directed by Patty Jenkins. It has also been rumored that Cavill and Gadot’s cameos in The Flash will be cut from the final theatrical release.
Aside from the HBO Max streaming platform, Black Adam is set to arrive on blu-ray, 4K HD, and DVD physical media on January 3, 2023.
