"Well well, thought you could sneak up on me, did you, The Sun? I guess it's time you SMELLED what BLACK ADAM is NUCLEAR FUSING!"

BLACK ADAM

The Abridged Script

FADE IN:

EXT. KAHNDAQ

We are treated to a narrated backstory of DWAYNE JOHNSON that will be repeated no fewer than six more times, at least once by the same narrator. Afterwards we cut to SARAH SHAHI, MOHAMMED AMER, and MARWAN KENZARI driving into the desert.

SARAH SHAHI

Hurry, we have to steal the magical Crown of Sabbac from a cave in the desert before the evil occupying army Intergang gets their hands on it and uses it to make us refer to them by that stupid placeholder name of theirs.

MOHAMMED AMER

You got it, sis! Hey wait, if Intergang doesn’t know where the crown is and we know they’re after us, aren’t we just leading them right to it Indiana Jones style?

SARAH SHAHI

Don’t worry about that, I’m sure there will be a series of puzzles or at least some dungeon crawling or something that will slow them down.

There AREN’T. SARAH takes the crown almost effortlessly and immediately is swarmed by INTERGANG GOONS.

MARWAN KENZARI

Muahaha! A classic double-cross! I actually want the crown all for myself, Sarah!

SARAH SHAHI

But I trusted you. So, why didn’t you just let me leave with it, and then take it later after we store it a series of progressively less secure messenger bags?

MARWAN KENZARI

I couldn’t risk you trying to wear it and use the power it grants for yourself! Actually, come to think of it, why don’t you ever even consider doing that? In fact, nobody on your side considers doing it, why don’t you just destroy it? It can only be used for evil, it’s not even how the protagonist gets his powers.

SARAH SHAHI

Protagonist? You mean it’s not me? Oh fuck is this a vehicle for The Roc--

BOOM! Suddenly, DWAYNE “THE ROCK” "STOP CALLING ME THAT" JOHNSON explodes out of a stone tomb and starts laying absolute waste to the GOONS. He mercilessly murders them, spending the time to throw them around and bash them into things even after establishing he can point and explode them with lightning, an effect he hopes you really enjoy watching because it comprises the next 45 minutes.

SARAH SHAHI

Now that I’ve watched you murder forty-thousand guys, allow me to invite you into my home where you can hang out with my son in his bedroom. I trust you because you didn't kill me on sight and the bar for men here is real low.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Okay but only if I can light something in his room on fire and then have nobody even react to it.

INT. SARAH’S HOUSE

DWAYNE is greeted by SARAH’S KID, BODHI SABONGUI.

BODHI SABONGUI

Hi! I’m your kid sidekick and surely I’m related to a producer or something because holy shit this performance is rough. Anyway, I know you used to defend this land from invaders back in ancient times and I was hoping you'd do it again because the guys here now yell at me for skateboarding so can you hurl them into the sun?

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Look kid, I hate kids and teamwork and heroics, and I damn sure hate having any kind of motivation. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure I look like a giant toe sticking out of a hole in a black sock.

BODHI SABONGUI

Wait, no! I need you to promise to stop killing people and try out some catchphrases I thought of for you, an impossibly muscular movie star playing a role where you are a stranger to our time and are devoid of your usual charisma.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Wait, are we doing a--

BODHI SABONGUI

It’s a Terminator 2, yeah.

DWAYNE leaves by putting a series of giant holes in the wall while somehow leaving the building intact and starts murdering more evil occupiers like any DASTARDLY SUPERVILLAIN would.

INT. JUSTICE SOCIETY HEADQUARTERS

ALDIS HODGE makes his first and final appearance not looking FUCKING RIDICULOUS in a ZOOM MEETING with VIOLA DAVIS.

VIOLA DAVIS

Alright Aldis, I need you to assemble a team of superpowered heroes, even though the only thing known about me is that I pulled together the Suicide Squad specifically because I do not have access to any superpowered heroes.

ALDIS HODGE

Sure thing, I guess this makes sense since we’re like the B-team Justice League, it’s not like you’re Superman’s boss or anything.

VIOLA DAVIS

Very good point but also I am Superman’s boss now too. Now, who have you got?

ALDIS HODGE

Well, I’m a Falcon.

PIERCE BROSNAN

I’m a Dr. Strange.

QUINTESSA SWINDELL

I’m a Storm.

NOAH CENTINEO

I’m an Ant-Man.

VIOLA DAVIS

Perfect. Now, there’s no time to gather information on your target or train any of these rookies. This should feel like the exhausting Man of Steel ending stretched out for 2 straight hours, so get out there and don’t get immediately atomized after you threaten the guy who keeps atomizing everyone who remotely threatens him.

EXT. KAHNDAQ

DWAYNE is talking incessantly about what a hero he isn’t while dispatching evildoers when the JUSTICE SOCIETY arrives in the excessively monogrammed personal flying vehicle of the guy whose only power is flight.

PIERCE BROSNAN

Alright now, we have to trick this guy into saying “Shazam” and then somehow not immediately saying it a second time.

NOAH CENTINEO

How the fuck do you trick someone into saying “Shazam”? You gonna ask him for app recommendations?

ALDIS HODGE

It's easy guys, watch. Dwayne! Give up and surrender! Say “Shazam” so that you can lose your powers and we can go home.

PIERCE BROSNAN

WHOA! Aldis, what the fuck?

QUINTESSA SWINDELL

Yeah definitely not like that, why are you in charge?

DWAYNE JOHNSON

I bend the knee to no man. Prepare for battle if you want to die.

ALDIS HODGE

Heroes don’t kill people, Dwayne. Says I, the guy carrying a heavy spiked mace as my only weapon that doesn’t seem effective against superpowered people but would be ideal exclusively for caving in human skulls.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Okay but, I don’t want to be a hero. You can tell because I say that more than that candy ass Vin Diesel tells you he's Groot.

(murders people in increasingly Mortal Kombatesque ways)

ALDIS HODGE

Okay, but if you did want to be a hero and audition for our very competent and unique superhero team--

DWAYNE JOHNSON

--which I very much do not--

(exploding eyeballs with effortless finger lightning)

ALDIS HODGE

--naturally. But if you did, you’d want to not kill people.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Tell that to Zod’s snapped neck. Almost every DC movie ends with the “hero” killing the villain or a fuckton of henchmen so where is this coming from?

(genital mutilation followed by asphyxia due to blockage of upper airway by mutilated genitals)

ALDIS HODGE

Sorry to keep going on about this for what feels like eternity but for some reason we’ve decided it’s going to be the central conflict of your character. Look, killing people isn’t even the most effective way of getting what you want out of them.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

What about threatening to kill them?

(crushing people by dropping piles of previously murdered dead bodies on them)

ALDIS HODGE

Well yeah, that’s extremely effective. In fact, it’s what I do pretty much the entire movie, with you.

They FIGHT. The JUSTICE SOCIETY puts in a good effort but they are no match for THE CLAUSE IN DWAYNE JOHNSON’S CONTRACT THAT SPECIFIES HE CAN NEVER LOSE AN ON-SCREEN FIGHT.

ALDIS HODGE

Okay, let’s negotiate. Here’s my proposal: I act like I have some kind of leverage in this situation and demand that you relinquish your powers, surrender completely, and become my prisoner in suspended animation forever, which is effectively death. In exchange, you won’t have to watch us lose to you again.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

No.

(pause)

Fine.

He goes to DEMOLITION MAN PRISON wearing a MASK THAT DISABLES HIS POWERS but only because he chose to lose, DWAYNE’S AGENT would like that specified in writing.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Wait, are we doing a--

BODHI SABONGUI

It’s a Minority Report, yeah.

Meanwhile, MARWAN has a chance to steal the CROWN OF SABBAC and then DIE.

MARWAN KENZARI

Death at last! You see, Dwayne's penchant for murder was indeed his one true weakness! Now I shall be reborn as a demon monster made of questionable CGI, there’s one of us in the third act of every DC movie and we're not about to fix what is only mostly broken!

MARWAN transforms into a CAMEO FROM A TENACIOUS D SEQUEL and starts destroying KHANDAQ. Or liberating it as the new king, maybe. It doesn’t matter.

MARWAN KENZARI

Mwa-ha-ha! That's right, Marvel was too afraid of China to do Mephisto so now we're doing it!

PIERCE BROSNAN

I think our only option is to free Dwayne. I’ll use my arbitrary telekinetic and telepathic abilities with an infinite spell range that somehow never seem to turn the tide of battle to...

(checks notes)

...er... oh my.

NOAH CENTINEO

Convince him to fight his way out of a secret government facility so that he can assert his right to remove his mask?

PIERCE BROSNAN

Yeah, pretty much.

QUINTESSA SWINDELL

Things have gotten a little awkward under David Zaslav, huh?

DWAYNE gets back his powers and shows up to the climax of the movie named after him.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

That’s enough, Marwan. Do you have any last words? Particularly about confirming the existence of Hell, which might be noteworthy for someone from a fictional country that is almost certainly religious.

MARWAN KENZARI

Silence! Do you really think you can stop me? I have the power of a literal god, it would be world-breaking for a single character to be more powerful than me and then expect audiences to believe he can be defeated in a sequel.

ALDIS HODGE

You bet we can stop you! Maybe not alone. But with the power of teamwork, we can come together and--

DWAYNE JOHNSON

He’s dead. I ripped him in half lengthwise starting at his head while you were talking, cleaving him in twain with my bare hands while screaming like it made me cum.

(pause)

This is a movie for children.

BODHI SABONGUI

You did it! You rid our country of invaders, about 5 seconds after I gave a speech that roused our people to defend it themselves.

ALDIS HODGE

Looks like our work here is done, team. The guy we were sent to stop is now the ruler, the guy we let have the crown was killed by him instead of captured by us, and Pierce Brosnan got himself written out of any sequels.

PIERCE BROSNAN

Tell people my powers were well-defiiiiinnneedddd

(dies)

NOAH CENTINEO

Plus I managed to continually hit on with the one female member of the team without a single complaint from HR!

QUINTESSA SWINDELL

And I successfully made a bunch of comic nerds look me up to see if I was actually a canon DC Comics character before this movie. Admit it, you’re not sure!

They all LEAVE, having accomplished literally NOTHING.

VIOLA DAVIS

(on Zoom)

Dwayne. I realize you just wiped the floor with the team I sent after you but for some reason every single line of dialogue in this movie is a threat. If you ever leave Khandaq, I will not hesitate to send a pin-up girl with a baseball bat after you.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

You can try, but nobody on this planet can stop me. Especially not my classic nemesis...

(checks Wikipedia)

Okay it says here my enemy is a child who can turn into a superhero with a magic word so that's not happening. I decree I am now a Superman villain so go ahead and upgrade me to DC first class.

BODHI SABONGUI

So Dwayne, now that you’re the hero of Khandaq, you can probably admit your name "Teth-Adam" is old-fashioned and lame while wanting to preserve fifty percent of it. Can we have an awkward conversation about what we should call you so that we can cut to the title card as a gag like a cold open from Always Sunny?

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Wait, are we doing a--

BODHI SABONGUI

It’s a Fant4stic, yeah.

END

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