While Black Adam is focused on Dwayne Johnson's titular superhero, the movie introduces many more new faces to the DC Extended Universe. Within the Justice Society alone, four new superheroes are coming to theaters: Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate, Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone, Aldis Hodge as Hawkman, and Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher. So, it’s hardly shocking that during an interview with producers Beau Flynn and Hiram Garcia, Collider’s own Steven Weintraub discovered there was once a longer version of Black Adam that had to be cut down ahead of the theatrical release.
At first, Flynn and Garcia had a longer version of the movie. However, they decided to focus more on the titular character, removing several Justice Society scenes until Black Adam came in at 124 minutes long for the release. As Flynn tells us:
“One of the great challenges to make a movie with Black Adam and the Justice Society and really launching them…it was very tricky particularly in the edit. Because we shot a lot of footage to figure out the balance between really giving the audience a kind of backstory on the Justice side and not assuming that they know all these characters, of course you know Hawkman and his mythology, but a lot of people don't. Same thing with Fate. And we have some incredible scenes between Smasher and Cyclone and some of our favorite scenes in the movie are Hawkman and Dr. Fate. But there are a good handful of scenes that we did have to cut just to make sure we were servicing Black Adam.”
So, by keeping the movie around two hours, Flynn and Garcia ensured they were delivering the action-fueled experience they’d promised fans. As Flynn puts it, “we wanted this to be a thrill ride from the minute you sit down to the end post-credit scene.”
Since superhero movies are so loaded on digital effects, we wondered if any of the cut scenes were close to being finished, which would mean a lot of extra work left on the cutting room floor. However, when asked about it, Flynn and Garcia underlined how they’ve carefully planned Black Adam so that no heavy VFX work would be done in scenes that weren’t final. In Garcia’s words:
“You want to get a lot of those cuts and everything tightened up before you're starting to get into the full flow of VFX. That's just being responsible with filmmaking and making sure that we're always utilizing all of our money the best way. So a lot of those cuts were done before visual effects were done.”
Even so, Flynn tells us a few scenes did get a fair amount of VFX before they decided they wouldn’t fit in Black Adam. As Flynn explains it:
“The last minute I would say there were probably two or three scenes that were close to completion. That was it. We try and preview our movies up early to the audience so we can be responsible and not start turning sequences over to visual effects houses. Because not only is it money, but it's time. And all of these top VFX companies, their bandwidth is crazy. They will turn down millions of dollars because they'll say we just don't have the artists or we just don't have the ability to land this for you in time. Which we appreciate the honesty, but at the same time is we still had a release date to make.”
Black Adam is now playing in theaters. Look for more from our exclusive interview with Flynn and Garcia soon, and look for our exclusive interview with Dwayne Johnson later today. In the meantime, check out our chat with Brosnan and Hodge down below.