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November 2, 2007


The Rock will re-team with “Get Smart” director Peter Segal for a film version of “Shazam”, based on the comic of the same name.

Though the big guy was reportedly offered the opportunity to play the caped superhero Captain Marvel, he’s instead opted to play the villain.

The DC Comics’ property tells of Billy Batson, a youth who works as a radio news reporter and was chosen to be a champion of good by the wizard Shazam. Whenever Billy speaks the wizard's name, he is instantly struck by a magic lightning bolt that transforms him into an adult superhero – Captain Marvel - empowered with the abilities of six mythical figures.

The character Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson will be playing is ‘Black Adam’, a sort-of ‘villain with a conscience’. Adam was a previous appointee of the wizard Shazam, but soon used his power for his own corrupt ends, which forced the wizard to punish him. Generally, that punishment was to remove Adam from that time, only to appear in modern times to challenge Shazam's current appointee, Billy Batson, in his Captain Marvel form.