Talk:Black Adam (film)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 January 2023

It needs to be upgraded because Black Adam is nominated and the people deserve to know that this movie was great as well, despite the box office bomb 2A02:214A:8114:A400:5507:AB0C:9F5D:FC7A (talk) 10:56, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Lemonaka (talk) 12:08, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

"mostly negative reviews" claim

Nyxaros, I see in your recent edit, you combined some elements and removed opposing claims, choosing "negative" as the consensus in sources. However, we know that MetaCritic has classified the overall reception as "average or mixed". There are also quite a few sources out there that counter the ones listed in the article:

1. Box Office Bust: 'Black Adam' Faces Theatrical Losses – Variety (December 5, 2022)
2. R-Rated DC Scenes We Never Got To See In The Original Cut – Slashfilm (June 26, 2023)
3. 'Black Adam' Weekend Box Office Powers Past Expectations With $67 Million – Collider (October 23, 2022)
4. Black Adam RT Audience Score Best For DC Movies Since Nolan's Trilogy – Screen Rant (October 23, 2022)
5. The Rock Comments on Black Adam's Mixed Reviews... – MovieWeb (March 13, 2023)
6. 'Black Adam' Gives Dwayne Johnson His Biggest Domestic Box Office Opening as a Leading Man – People (October 24, 2022)
7. Black Adam Rock Bottoms at the Box Office – Gizmodo (December 6, 2022)

All of these list the overall reception as mixed, and one of those is a more recent publication from Variety, which interestingly is also used to also support "negative" in an earlier publication. I don't think we should be labeling the overall critical consensus on Wikipedia when it has not been clearly labeled in sources. --GoneIn60 (talk) 21:23, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Why are you listing sources here that supposedly counter claim the sources I added but are not mentioned in the article? Go add them to the page, some of which mention early mixed reviews. We do not use Metacritic's classification only when multiple sources say otherwise. ภץאคгöร 06:18, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Figured we'd discuss here first. Quite a few of the sources I listed were published over a month after the film's release, and in some cases more than 5 months later. Instead of bombarding the article with conflicting sources, I think it would be better to remove the summary statement altogether. Just let the primary aggregators, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, speak for themselves. Otherwise, you're going to have statements like:

"According to Rebecca Rubin at Variety, overall reception was mixed, but her colleague J. Kim Murphy described the film as drawing negative reviews."

Conflicting statements like that would begin to litter the article, unless you have a better idea. --GoneIn60 (talk) 13:57, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes. I think stating the film was "not well-received" or "critically unsuccessful" could be used and the note could describe "mixed" and "negative" reception from sources, maybe starting with "Some publications described the critical response as "mixed", while others [...]". ภץאคгöร 17:14, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Glad we could reach some common ground! I agree with "not well received" along with a description in the {{efn}} that covers both "mixed" and "negative". --GoneIn60 (talk) 19:21, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Made the changes. Trimmed down the number of sources to 4 each, which should be sufficient. Thanks. --GoneIn60 (talk) 19:49, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

"box-office bomb" is neither cited nor supported

This violates WP:NOR and is evidence of a hostile bias towards the film and possibly also Dwayne Johnson and/or film makers of color in mainstream Hollywood productions, depending on how the context is interpreted. It should be corrected or removed and that rest of the article should be policed for more evidence of original research and/or further negativity bias. 74.104.130.145 (talk) 02:15, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Box-office bomb article describes it as "a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run."

In Black Adam (film)#Box office, the third paragraph states "Several publications described the film as a box office bomb..." with five references:

• THR wrote Black Adam "will be lucky to break even".
• Variety calls it a "Box Office Bust"
• Forbes says the film "is still shy of the numbers it needed to overcome hefty production costs."
• Looper literally says "it's still a box office bomb"
• ComicBook writes "it could lose $50 million to $100 million in its theatrical run."

If you have updated references demonstrating it is NOT a box office bomb, feel free to post them here or be bold and update the article accordingly. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 04:06, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Per MOS:ACCLAIMED, phrases such as "box-office bomb" are loaded terms which have become overly used and excessive to the point they are not as descriptive. Only Looper explicitly calls it such while the other refs are used to imply it, though Looper is not a high-quality source nor an expert in BO analysis. Per the MOS: "Avoid weasel words. If any form of paraphrasing is disputed, quote the source directly. Describing a film with superlatives such as "critically acclaimed" or "box-office bomb" is loaded language and an exceptional claim that must be attributed to multiple high-quality sources. Be wary of source headlines, which are not a reliable source, that use these terms or superlatives, and are then not backed up by the body of the source." This article lacks such multiple high-quality sources calling it a bomb but highlights the break even point and other financial data, so those should be what is used. This has been an issue across these superhero articles lately, and I and others have started to deal with them at the likes of The Flash (film) and The Marvels. I'm planning on rummaging through this article when I have time to to clean it up and review the sourcing. Remember, all statements need to be sourced, especially labels we use on films. We can't interpret a label or phrasing like this that actually mitigates what is actually going on with a film's performance. Trailblazer101 (talk) 04:18, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Sabbac/Ishmael?

Should the references to Sabbac later in the article be changed to Ishmael? I mean they're technically one and the same (i.e. Sabbac is Ishmael's villain name). Visokor (talk) 07:10, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Exceeded budget, so how did it not break even?

"failed to break-even at the box office, grossing $393 million worldwide gross against a budget of $190–$260 million."

Riddle: Q: How does 393 > 260 not break even? A: When it exceeds it.

So, I guess it's still a valid statement! :p Seriously, though, it, clearly, exceeded budget, so it more than broke even, even thougb it could hardly be called a blockbuster. Skaizun (talk) 00:23, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

@Skaizun: Head over to Box-office bomb and List of biggest box-office bombs and give those articles a read. Should answer all your questions, and even a few you didn't even realize you were gonna have. - \\'cԼF 02:02, 20 March 2025 (UTC)