Black Adam Director Jaume Collet-Serra Compared The Character To This Iconic Antihero
DC Comics character Black Adam is one of moral complexity. As where many comic book characters are strictly good or evil, Black Adam typically ends up somewhere in between. Although he originally started off as a villain of DC's Captain Marvel (also known by the misnomer Shazam), Black Adam's history eventually reveals a conflicted individual who only wants what is best for his people, even if it means he has to resort to violence in order to achieve his goals.
According to DC, Black Adam's first appearance was in 1945, and he is one of the most powerful magic users in DC's repertoire. This doesn't mean that he is strictly some scholar of magic like Zatanna because he is also incredibly strong and physically resilient. Black Adam is one of the few people who can stand toe-to-toe with Superman, which really speaks to the character's power. Luckily for fans of Black Adam, the anti-hero will soon have his own feature-length, live-action movie starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. It seems though while crafting the upcoming on-screen persona of Black Adam, director Jaume Collet-Serra took a page from a famous fictional character. But whom?
Black Adam wants to know if you feel lucky
In an interview with Vanity Fair, both Dwayne Johnson and director Jaume Collet-Serra spoke of the effort that went into crafting the film "Black Adam" and the myriad sources of inspiration. One aspect that consistently popped up was that the character of Black Adam is much more motivated by vengeance than many of the contemporary DC superheroes and, as such, drew from sources much closer to the likes of anti-heroes as opposed to characters like Superman.
Collet-Serra brought up one particular character of note as inspiration for Black Adam and said, "I talked early on with [Dwayne Johnson] about how there were many similar aspects between 'Black Adam' and 'Dirty Harry,' which is a movie that broke rules in the '70s. The systems were corrupt, so you had criminals taking advantage. You needed a cop that would cut through the bulls***, and basically do what needs to be done."
He continued, "That's very much in line with Black Adam and his way of thinking. I think that's appealing to pretty much everybody. Everybody knows how the world sometimes is not fair, and you need people that break the rules to even out the playing field." According to AMC Movie Blog, the 1971 film "Dirty Harry" and its titular main character, played by Clint Eastwood, would spawn an entire genre of cops with a chip on their shoulders and a disrespect for bureaucracy, which is still a trope that can be seen on any of the multitude of current cop dramas. One thing is for certain, though, and that is Black Adam will probably be knocking some heads around in the upcoming movie if he is being compared to Dirty Harry Callahan.