‘Black Adam’ standing tall as the DCU’s biggest box office hit in the last 5 years sums up the franchise’s fall from grace

If we could get a penny for anybody’s thoughts on The Flash debacle, then Black Adam architect Dwayne Johnson would undoubtedly be near the top of the list given the repeated misfortunes to have befallen the DCU in recent years.

In addition to several boardroom reshuffles, a corporate takeover, the appointment of a new creative team who announced a complete overhaul, a pandemic, simultaneous streaming releases, the ongoing for the SnyderVerse, and a string of box office disappointments in a row, things have been lurching from bad to worse for what feels like forever.

While there’s plenty of time for James Gunn and Peter Safran to quell the discontent and start delivering critical and commercial success on a consistent basis, it can’t be overlooked that The Rock’s sins are beginning to be forgiven after he ended up becoming a figure of fun for heavily touting that the hierarchy of power was about to change, only for the new co-CEOs to deny him the opportunity.

Racking up less than $400 million from theaters isn’t ideal for a comic book adaptation starring the biggest name in the business, but by the time the dust settles on The Flash, Black Adam is almost certain to end up as the top-earning DCU installment to have arrived since Aquaman set an all-time company record.

During that period we’ve seen Shazam!, Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman 1984, The Suicide Squad, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and The Flash come and go, and they’ve all been branded as a disappointment. At the end of the day, though, it’s Black Adam left standing tall as the best of a bad bunch, which says everything about the shared universe’s struggles.