Black Adam Just Smashed The Rock's Previous Box Office Records

Dwayne Johnson, the action movie superstar once known to wrestling fans as The Rock, has been trying to play the DC Comics supervillain-turned-antihero Black Adam in a movie for years. As far as comic book antiheroes go, Black Adam didn't have the name recognition of, say, Venom or Carnage, so it's understandable that Warner Bros. would be skeptical of his big-screen prospects even with a star like Johnson stepping into the dark lightning-bolted costume. But now, "Black Adam" has defied those expectations in a very big way, and evidently wasn't hurt by The Rock spoiling what would have been its biggest surprise.

Cinematic passion projects don't always pay off at the box office, but Johnson's 15-year quest to get a "Black Adam" movie into theaters has shaped up to be an exception to the rule. Not only is the movie a commercial success, but you might be surprised to learn that it also happens to be Johnson's strongest opening as a solo leading man.

Deadline has the stats, and the most impressive one is this: "Black Adam" had a $67 million opening weekend as of Sunday morning, making it the best domestic opening of any solo Dwayne Johnson vehicle. And there's even the possibility that it will beat the Sunday forecasts and gross even more.

It goes without saying that "Black Adam" has been a hit with audiences. It currently stands strong with a 90 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, which puts it ahead of such recent DC favorites as "Joker" and "The Batman." Word of mouth was evidently strong over the weekend since Saturday's grosses saw nearly a 25 percent spike compared to Friday's gross of less than $20 million. And "Black Adam" also appears to be somewhat critic-proof, judging by its much lower critical score of 40 percent on the Tomatometer.

If you look into Johnson's previous box office triumphs, the only ones that surpass the $67 million opening for "Black Adam" are ensemble pieces like "The Mummy Returns" or the "Fast and Furious" movies. And it even safely beats the $60 million opening enjoyed by the Johnson/Jason Statham "Fast and Furious" spin-off "Hobbs and Shaw."

The bottom line: "Black Adam" is taking Johnson to new commercial heights as a leading man, and, despite all the skeptics, the box office hierarchy of the DC Universe has indeed changed.