Jaume Collet-Serra had to balance characters in Black Adam

Jaume Collet-Serra had a balancing act to make sure all of the ‘Black Adam’ characters had enough time on screen.

The 48-year-old director has helmed the new DC Extended Universe (DCEU) blockbuster that features Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson as the titular character and explained the challenges of introducing a live-action Justice Society on the big screen.

Speaking to Collider about he managed the story, Jaume said: “A lot of it is experience in having done a lot of action sequences through the years that I’ve had to cut down because there were not enough character moments.

“So, you really have to think about character first and what defines character and if you know each character, and you know their arc, you have to show that through action, not only words. You try to infuse the action with those decisions and it becomes a little bit of a puzzle because what might help a character might not help another character.”

Jaume was grateful to have plenty of time to work on the film to make sure all of the characters were well-represented.

He explained: “Luckily, we had a lot of time. We had a great team of storyboards and pre-viz artists. And we just kept working on it until we kind of nailed all of those character moments.

“By the time that we shot we knew pretty much what we were doing. It was not a lot of second-guessing, which is why I think the action sequences look really good, because not a lot was left on the cutting room floor.”

Jaume believes that the movie has extra intrigue as The Rock is playing a different type of character than he would typically portray.

The ‘Jungle Cruise’ director said: “Here’s the thing, Dwayne is a hero. In this one, he was the problem for everybody else.

“And I think that that shift is what made these movies instantly different and reenergised. You could do things that you might have seen in other movies, but in a completely different way, because it’s not your lead guy doing them.”