Last weekend, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s new movie Black Adam reached No.1 on the box office charts, bringing in a whopping $67 million in the US. The movie came out on Oct. 21, making it Johnson’s top-earning movie. Internationally, the film obtained $75.7 million—bringing the global total to $142.7 million.
The production budget came somewhere between $195 million to $200 million.
Black Adam received a 90% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and a B+ on CinemaScore. Over 4,000 movie theaters, including IMAX and premium screens, played the NewLine/Warner Bros. movie, which also starred Aldis Hodge, Quintessa Swindell, Noah Centineo, and Pierce Brosnan.
“The success of Black Adam is truly a dream come true,” Hiram Garcia, a Black Adam producer and Johnson’s Seven Bucks President of Production, told Deadline. “We’ve been working towards this family goal here at Seven Bucks for 15 years, applying every bit of experience we’ve acquired over the years to help bring this project to life. So, to be here now, seeing how our hard work has been paid off with the biggest opening of our careers, is an incredible feeling.”
Garcia continued, “Our goal with this film was to establish several new characters in the DCEU that would give us an opportunity, in success, to really expand the universe, but most importantly, we wanted to take care of the fans. We’ve been listening to their feedback for years, and we were determined to give them what they wanted. Their enthusiasm for the film has been incredible and truly matches the passion that our Seven Bucks team, along with FPC and Jaume, poured into this movie.”
The action-packed movie received mixed reviews, with some calling the film “lackluster “and “bland.” But others called the film “fun” and said it delivered the right amount of action.
“Will critics love it? Absolutely not,” Paul Salfen of AMFM Magazine wrote in his review, rating it a 7.5 out of 10. “But will you love it? If you love it? If you love big, loud popcorn superhero movies and The Rock? You bet.”
Wendy Ide, from the Observer (UK), gave it a two out of five and wrote, “Cheaper, trashier, perhaps even dumber films have been saved by the presence of Dwayne Johnson. So why is DC’s latest so doggedly immune to the redemptive power of the Rock?”
Julia Roberts and George Clooney’s Ticket to Paradise came in second, earning a global total of $96.6 million and getting an A- on CinemaScore.
