His name’s Fate, Dr. Fate
In an exclusive with the Hollywood Reporter, it has been announced that Pierce Brosnan will feature in the upcoming Black Adam movie, featuring Dwayne Johnson as the protagonist. He will play the role of antihero, Dr. Fate and it will be his first DC project.
Brosnan, 67, has already featured as one of the most iconic action heroes ever, playing James Bond in four 007 films. Now, he is making the leap over to the world of superheroes in this spin-off to New Line Cinema and DC’s last film, Shazam! The film is due to start production in Atlanta in April.
While that film opted for a comedic, tongue in cheek take on the superhero, Black Adam looks to be darker in tone given the source material, and Dwayne Johnson is believed to pushing for an even grittier overall movie experience.
Brosnan will play Kent Nelson, aka ‘Dr. Fate’, a powerful sorcerer and part of the ‘Justice Society’ – the precursor to the Justice League. He is one of the oldest characters in the DC universe and falls into similar antihero territory as Black Adam.
While the plot of the film has been kept pretty quiet so far, the cast has steadily been announced: Noah Centineo will play Atom Smasher, Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone; Aldis Hodge will play Hawkman and Marwan Kenzari has also been cast in a mystery role. Alongside Brosnan, these actors will make up the Justice Society in its first feature debut.
Ensemble films have, obviously, been hugely popular over the last decade or so. The success of the Marvel movies and Avengers franchise, specifically, was enormous and while the Snyder cut of the Justice League recently dropped, DC are still yet to hit the same levels of success.
Black Adam will likely be the next big film in fleshing out the DCEU, as not only is the character of Adam arch-rivals with Shazam, but the pair have also crossed paths with Superman throughout the comics and cartoons. How big a role Pierce Brosnan’s, Dr. Fate, will play remains to be seen but they’re clearly building towards another big mash-up.
The film will be directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and is currently being written by Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani, though the script has changed hands already. Its initial premiere was slated for December this year, but with Covid delays across the movie industry, many are expecting it to be pushed back to Summer 2022.
