Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been rumored and/or linked with various DC Comics projects for some time. There were persistent Lobo rumors. He was on track to play Black Adam in a Shazam film (that will probably never materialize) at one point. And then in recent months, ol' Rocky has been stoking the fires of the internet about his plans to appear in a DC Comics superhero movie. He's still not telling us who it is, though.Johnson told ComingSoon that he and DC Comics have been engaged in "ongoing discussions...for years about the right character." Yes, well, that brings us back to the Lobo rumor and the Black Adam connection...not to mention the Jon Stewart/Green Lantern scenario (more on that in a minute). But Mr. Johnson won't settle for just any DC Comics character, he has a pretty specific vision in mind, and that there are three essential qualities that the character must have in order to be portrayed by him.
"The first quality we were looking for is that he had to be extremely complex and have a lot going on and what that does for me as an actor and for the studio, just gives us space that we can explore his complexities. The other quality is that the character we were looking for had to be well known but never brought to life. That does, again as an actor, is that it gives me a little bit of space and it just gives me a chance to put an imprint into his personality with the set of tools that I can bring to the table and put a very unique twist on his personality but still pay homage to who he is. The third thing and most important is that he had to be a badass mother***ker and on a Superman level of power where he could throw down. In those three qualities, I'm happy we've found that character and right now we're out to a lot of writers."
So...that works. Since it sounds like we're not going to see anything resembling a Shazam movie anytime in the near future, we can eliminate Black Adam. At one point, it sounded like Green Lantern Jon Stewart was a possibility, based on some casual remarks made by Mr. Johnson, although that seems to be out, as well. Even though Jon Stewart is not Hal Jordan, Rock mooted that idea in a tweet with a fan this afternoon, since he considers Green Lantern to already have been done.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is Definitely Playing a DC Superhero...But Who?