
“His demands increased and the returns just weren’t there,” notes another insider. The actor also insisted on a tequila bar at the New York premiere of “Black Adam” featuring his Teremana brand, despite the film being rated PG-13. Meanwhile, the Johnson-Warners relationship already was wearing thin after Johnson pushed for a producing credit on the animated film “DC League of Super-Pets,” which opened in July, but did little to promote it. Cavill parted ways with his manager, Johnson’s ex-wife Dany Garcia, this year, but a source says it was unrelated to the DC drama and she remains a strategic adviser to the actor. 21, fizzled with a $391 million worldwide haul against a $195 budget plus $40 million in reshoots, scuttling any plans for more outings for the lightning bolt-wielding antihero and officially ending the Cavill Superman era. film co-heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy approved a Cavill cameo in “Black Adam,” despite the fact that Emmerich had made the call in 2018 to find another actor to don the red cape.īut “Black Adam,” which bowed Oct. “Dwayne went around everyone, which didn’t sit well,” says one.Įventually, new Warner Bros. film chief Toby Emmerich prepared to exit, it ruffled feathers internally, sources add. Discovery merger closed in April, Dwayne Johnson directly pitched CEO David Zaslav on a multiyear plan for Black Adam and a Cavill-led Superman in which the two properties would interweave, setting up a Superman-versus-Black Adam showdown, sources say. “Black Adam” producers Hiram Garcia, who is Johnson’s former brother-in-law, and Beau Flynn also were part of the brain trust looking to take DC down a new path. Other sources confirmed the meeting but downplayed any discussion of Black Adam’s future.Īlthough the move took place amid a power vacuum created as former DC head Walter Hamada and Warner Bros.

But things could have gone in an alternative direction: Behind the scenes, a different group made a play for control of DC. Not long after the Warner Bros. As 2023 kicks off, DC bosses Gunn and Safran continue to sift through the rubble and will soon reveal their three-year interconnected vision for the cinematic universe, which won’t include Cavill’s Superman or Wonder Woman at all.
