Did you know that Black Adam was originally meant to be the villain in Shazam! Instead of Doctor Sivana?

The reason that didn't happen was in large part because of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

In case you're not familiar with his work already, Dwayne Johnson's highly successful film career began after his success in the ring as a professional wrestler.

Johnson’s ring name was The Rock, and he is still often referred to by that name in and out of the ring. He is now semi-retired from wrestling.

The Rock seems to be great at everything he does, as he is considered to be one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, and is also now one of the top-grossing and highest paid actors in the world.

In addition to wrestling and acting, Johnson founded a production company, Seven Bucks Productions, which has partnered with DC films to produce Shazam!

The Rock worked on the production of Shazam! and was cast in the role of Black Adam back in 2014.

After they began working on the plans for the movie, The Rock says that he suggested removing Black Adam from Shazam! and giving him his own movie, which is the route they ended up taking.

Johnson says that Shazam and Black Adam needed more space to develop their origin stories in separate movies rather than trying to fit all of that in the first Shazam! movie.

Zachary Levi recently stated that Black Adam will not be appearing in Shazam! 2. He said that his character, Shazam, and Black Adam are likely to meet in Shazam! 3.

This would take place after Black Adam's origin story has been developed in his solo movie.

Black Adam may not have appeared in Shazam!, but there was a reference to his origin in the film. When Shazam speaks of the fall of the Council of Wizards, he says:

"Long ago, we chose a champion"¦ and we chose recklessly. He used his power for revenge, releasing the Seven Deadly Sins into your world. Millions of lives were lost. Entire civilizations erased from existence."

This fits well with Black Adam's origins in the comics, while still leaving some room for a new interpretation of the character.

Black Adam isn't one of the most well known characters in comics, but he has been around for a long time.

Black Adam first appeared in Marvel Family #1 in 1945.

It was meant to be a one-time appearance, but his character returned in 1977, and has appeared in many series since then, including The New 52 and DC Rebirth as some of his more recent iterations.

Black Adam's origin story has changed slightly over the years. He was sometimes a super villain, and sometimes more of an anti-hero, seeking to defend his country and his people.

It seems likely that he will be portrayed as more of an anti-hero in his solo film, making for a compelling story in Black Adam, and a great lead up to seeing him as Shazam's adversary in Shazam! 3.

There are rumors that Hawkman, Atom Smasher, and Stargirl could be appearing in the Black Adam movie, but the cast has yet to be confirmed.

Black Adam's release date has not been decided yet.

Shazam! 2 is expected to start filming sometime next year, with Mister Mind being added to the cast.

When Johnson was cast in the role of Black Adam in 2014, DC had not been consistently performing quite as well in the box office as they have been recently.

Reviews of Suicide Squad were mixed after its release in 2016, but it still brought in almost $750 million worldwide.

Wonder Woman (in 2017) and Aquaman (in 2018) did very well in the box office with Wonder Woman grossing over $821 million worldwide and Aquaman bringing in over $1.1 billion worldwide.

The success of recent DC movies takes some of the pressure off of the Shazam! movies and Black Adam to revive the DC cinematic universe, as some had originally predicted.

DC currently has many other movies in the works that fans are excited to see, including Birds of Prey and Wonder Woman 1984 coming up in 2020, The Batman and The Suicide Squad in 2021, and Aquaman 2 in 2022.

Fans of Shazam! are looking forward to seeing more of their favorite characters coming to big screens in the future, but they'll have to wait a little longer to find out more details about what's in store for them.