Five years after Johnson started wrestling, a 2000 hosting stint on Saturday Night Live led to The Mummy Returns, which was followed by more than a dozen films including 2005’s Be Cool, 2007’s The Game Plan and 2008’s Get Smart. Still, the star knew something was missing. "I was told that I had to conform to a standard in Hollywood that would beget me more work, better roles," he explains. "Which meant I had to stop going to the gym, which meant I couldn’t be as big, which meant you had to distance yourself from wrestling. You essentially had to deconstruct yourself."
Austin HargraveWith Comic-Con just days away, it’s very possible that Dwayne Johnson’s DC superhero role is about to be revealed. Even if that’s not the case, however, the Hercules and Pain and Gain actor is dropping some pretty sizable hints about the role.
“There’s a character out there that we’re gonna announce very soon that I’m gonna play, and I’ll just say this — it’s the power of Superman,” Johnson teased Total Film magazine in an interview promoting Hercules. “This character has the power of Superman, he can throw down — just say the word, that’s all I’m gonna say.”
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He ruled out the rumored Green Lantern role some fans had been clamoring for. “It’s not Green Lantern,” he said. “Believe me, John Stewart, he was a character I wanted to play. But there was already a version of Green Lantern [in the movies], so now we’ve gone in a different direction.”
The reference to “just say the word” and having the power of Superman brings to mind two different characters from the DC Universe: Shazam and Black Adam, Shazam’s antihero opposite number. A Shazam movie has been in development for some time, and was named as an upcoming DC movie on Warners’ slate in a recent list doing the rounds online purporting to have been leaked from the studio.
Shazam is the current name of the classic hero Captain Marvel, a character with increased strength, speed, wisdom and the power of flight who is, in reality, the magical alter ego of a teenager called Billy Batson. The character first appeared in 1940’s Whiz Comics No. 2, created by C.C. Beck.
Watch Johnson’s video interview below.
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