All eyes on "Black Adam" at the box office

• “Black Adam” is expected to be the media giant’s last big theatrical release of the year, before it turns the page on a rocky 2022.
• The movie is a test of Warner’s ability to draw in die-hard DC boosters, and the uninitiated that know nothing about the character.
• It will open exclusively in theaters, with no official streaming date announced.

The intrigue: Current projections expect the movie to pull in something north of $60 million this weekend, Deadline reported, but that’s below other major tentpoles.

• Although Thursday night previews saw “Black Adam” pull in a solid $7.6 million, the movie will need to be “critic-proof.”
• Over at Rotten Tomatoes, a split is brewing between hard-nosed critics (a weak 43% approval rating based on over 150 reviews), and fans who give it a far more generous 88% “Fresh” rating).

What they’re saying: Some of the more unforgiving reviewers use words like “humdrum,” “clumsy,” and “brainless” (ouch). Still, the comparatively higher audience scores may yet give “Black Adam” an unexpected box office boost.

• Yet The Bulwark’s Sonny Bunch (known as a contrarian voice among movie aficionados), wrote on Friday that he “quite enjoyed [“Black Adam’s”] very specific brand of sadism.” So there’s that.