After a series of stumbles and an exciting promise of a new era, the The Suicide Squad. Although these reboots will take the DCEU in a new direction, Black Adam still sticks to the original plan that likely aims to pit the titular villain against Zachary Levi's caped superhero in a Shazam! sequel. However, the mistakes that led Warner Bros. to switch gears can serve as useful lessons for DC's next chapter of Shazam! lore.
The cinematic adaptation of Shazam's nemesis has been cooking for quite a long time, with Man of Steel. More than a decade later, DC's shared cinematic universe has built enough foundations for more enigmatic characters like Black Adam to show up and expand its mythology, despite the mixed reception of several of its previous titles. Now, a whole multiverse of DC properties is opening up and different continuities are going to start branching out in the next few years, but that doesn't mean Black Adam has to overcomplicate its vision to become the movie it has long been preparing to be.
Precisely, the most crucial error Black Adam needs to avoid is prioritizing setups for future installments over the self-contained story it's trying to tell. Such was one of the main flaws in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which rushed over the introduction of DC's most popular heroes barely two movies into the franchise. As a result, the otherwise somber encounter of the world's finest struggled to keep up and find a reasonable justification to conciliate the two heroes, which in turn affected the characters' arcs and the quality of the overarching narrative as a whole.
Similarly, Black Adam's bigger focus on a single character can give Hollywood's most profitable action star more space to explore the role of a compelling villain while letting him use his action and comedy strengths he's so famously known for.
As for the trouble-riddled Justice League, there's no way to guarantee Black Adam can escape unexpected production issues. What the movie can do is be prepared to accommodate to any circumstance even remotely similar to those that plagued the DCEU's most controversial offering. Not depending on so many factors such as an ensemble cast or an established hero is the first step, but the freedom that comes with DC's new continuity is an even more valuable benefit that allows for more creative solutions if unforeseen obstacles were to appear along the way.
If what Black Adam is just the first of many hits on the bullseye. It's just a matter of time until more positive surprises surface from the film's development.
