The Justice Society vs The Champion of Kahndaq
An edit of Black Adam (2022) that removes much of the childish POV so the movie fits better within the DCEU.

Bad Movies Made Less Bad Presents:
Less Hurut. Less Amon. No Catchphrases. More Culturally-Relevant Music. Less Western Needle Drops.

Main Goals:

• Remove Amon's POV as much as possible
• Minimize the hypocrisy of the Justice Society morals
• Minimize the overt foreshadowing of Ishmael evil intentions.
• Minimize exposition.
• Replace some needle drops to be more culturally relevant thematically.

Editing Intent:

Amon, as the audience's main character to learn about Adam through, made the Black Adam movie feel childish. But much of the politics touched on were much more mature. So, a proper Black Adam edit that feels less "childish" is what this edit aims to be.

Using a new text intro, establish the following:

• - Eternium is highlighted more akin to oil or diamonds - where outside powers come in to exploit the resources of a poor country.

• - The crown is initially described as becoming a symbol of the domination of the people of Kahndaq to the foreign warlords that fought for control of the resource, not a tool to access demonic powers.

• - The INTERGANG in the DCEU as a "private military contractor supported secretly by major world powers and international corporations." (This would better support the lack of help Kahndaq receives.) I initially wanted to make Intergang's former name "Blackwater", but the intro seemed too wordy already. Subtitles capitalize INTERGANG to give it a pseudo-connection to real organizations like INTERPOL.

Cut List:

• • Remove most of the flashback intro, use visuals from the flashback behind the new intro text, many shots slowed with Topaz

• • Movie begins in modern times. Remove most of Amon's narrations, and rescored "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" to blend foley from Amon skateboarding with the song ending at the military checkpoint.

• • Removed shot inside van of Ishmael's pistol

• • Trimmed down Amon talking back to gate guard.

• • Trimmed Samir asking Adrianna about her pendant.

• • Trimmed part of Karim's bald spot joke

• • Tightened up Ishmael asking about the Crown outside the mountain, and removed most shots of him looking sinister outside the mountain.

• • Removed shots of Ishmael looking sinister As they move through the caves.

• • Trimmed some of Karim's Car karaoke

• • Trimmed Merc dialogue to Karim

• • Trimmed Ishmael being creepy when he returns to Adrianna, removed her inquiring about Samir, as Ishmael just telegraphs evil here.

• • Trimmed Ishmael face shot when he is inquiring about why they buried Adam down there.

• • Trimmed Ishmael face shots while Adrianna is retrieving the crown.

• • Slowed and extended the shot of the crown inscription right after retrieval, and added Adrianna reading it for the first time

• • Trimmed some of the Merc dialogue and shots of Ishmael looking evil, needed to speed up the countdown to make it work

• • Trimmed more of Ishmael looking evil

• • Trimmed some of Adrianna's recitation

• • Trimmed the Merc's line to Adam when they first encounter him.

• • Trimmed Adam's face shot when he mentioned their magic is weak.

• • Trimmed a little of Ishmael getting crushed to be less obvious

• • Trimmed some of the face closeups of Adam as he battles INTERGANG

• • Change the needle drop song "Paint it Black" to something that feels more culturally appropriate. Using the track "Full Moon Fight" from the Moon Knight soundtrack.

• • Removed Adam and the grenade interaction

• • Tightened the Eternium rocket sequence, Adam no longer gets injured.

• • I had issues with Hawkman hearing "news reports" about Teth Adam destroying the initial INTERGANG forces at the mountain, which initially let it go. But eventually it started bothering me too much. To fix this, I have used the shots from the trailer of Adam and the fighter jets as a transition between Adam leaving Adrianna and when we see Hawkman watching the feeds. I have also not trimmed those feeds, and subtitles list them as intercepted transmissions from INTERGANG.

• • Tightened up the Carter/Waller scene. Tried to edit Waller to look like she is just reaching out to an outside team, not that they work for her. No team intros, Carter simply works WITH her for containment in this instance. Carter seems to be the equivalent of an Iron Man in the DCEU, and more concerned with rules than heart.

• • Fate's reply to Smasher about passports merged from two lines into one.

• • Removed the Nth metal references when entering the ship. My reasoning - there is just too much insider stuff in this movie in reference to the Justice Society players. I'm all for fan service, but this is getting layers deep and really isn't needed IMO to advance the story. I'm picking my battles here.

• • Removed Amon and Adam's scene in Amon's bedroom.

• • Adrianna locking the doors and analyzing the crown is trimmed. No TV shots, and the crown-reading footage is reversed, since Ancient writing in Farsi and Arabic was written right to left.

• • Scene trimmed so that Adam just shows up in their home, since Adrianna is the one that woke him up. Trimmed down the gunfight on TV. Most of Amon has been trimmed here, and removed Amon following Adam in the stairwell.

• • Removed Kent mentioning that a day had passed.

• • Removed Cyclone mentioning Kent is possessed when he wears the helmet.

• • Removed Amon trying to get Adam's attention by “throwing up the roc.” Tightened scene.

• • Rescored the needle drop gunfight song between Adam and the Merc and tightened scene.

• • Tightened the initial clash between Adam and JS for better pacing and less dialogue and a little less of Smasher being goofy.

• • Replaced Fate telling Adam "Kneel or Die." with "Let's got to prison, shall we?"

• • There is a subtle visual theme of Adam doing his full body energy burst that gets those around him hurt. But when he first does it against the JS and Fate has to rescore Adrianna and Amon from the pipes, his eyes don't do the warning glow. I added the glowing eyes to this instance to show the relation here to the other times it happens.

• • Removed first instance of Fate telling Adrianna she has the Crown of Sabbac.

• • Trimmed down Smashed fumbling his words with Cyclone after hitting Adam.

• • Tightened Adrianna's flashback of Adam's true history to fit better with the crown lore up to this point.

• • Trimmed some of Ishmael's speech to Amon in their apartment.

• • Tightened Amon's stairwell escape scene, removed catchphrase references.

• • Tightened the flybikes chase scene, removed the shot of Adam zooming and his head getting bigger.

• • Tightened the group discussion about the crown for less exposition, and focused on the JS not caring about Adrianna's family issues.

• • Replaced Kanye needle drop song.

• • Removed bad CGI shots of Adam racing for the bullet, instead his hand stopping the bullet is the first we see of Adam in action here to save Amon. Added line "I lost control again" with AI.

• • Tightened the Hurut flashback reveal to fit this story better, slow mo of the arrow being fired is shown before Hurut gets hit, removed the black suit change.

• • Adam's transfer to Harcort is tightened to be straight to the point.

• • Tightened Cyclone and Adriannas discussion about the crown to only reveal the underworld mirror aspect.

• • Ishmael in hell is trimmed to remove overt exposition.

• • I can't make Sabbac more compelling, but I can give him less cheezy screentime. Closeups of his face are trimmed when appropriate to give a more menacing impression

• • Vfx removal of Carter firing shots at Sabbac as he sends fire at the plane

• • Tightened the fight of JS and Sabbac, removed shots of Karim losing contact with Amon and Adrianna

• • Moved up the "fighting the undead hordes" scenes so the people are already fighting by the time the statue falls. Shortened van arrival of Karim. Added more "zombie" sounds. Removed Amon's speech and just have him arriving to help Adrianna with other Kahndaqians.

• • Fate uses the name "Black Adam" in the trailers, but never does in the movie. But not anymore! The line in the "motivational speech" Fate gives Adam where he mentions that "Maybe a White Knight isn't always needed, sometimes you need something darker" that always felt slightly racist to me. Now, Fate gives Adam his "Black" moniker here.

• • Swapped Adam's "family in afterlife" moment for a flashback with new subtitles of Hurut motivating Adam.

• • Removed Adam saying catchphrase before killing Sabbac.

• • Trimmed Smasher's awkward pause after the Team comment.

• • Movie ends with Adam destroying the old throne.

• • two new songs used for the credits: Arab Trap 2 - Habibi by DJ KABOO and Si Al Sayed by Tamer Hosny ft Snoop Dogg

• • shots of old comics added to part of the credit scroll, pulled from the blu ray extras.

• • Post credit scene is trimmed to remove Cavill's Superman cameo. Admittedly awesome, but come one - we all wanna see Black Adam vs Shazam matchup! So...

• • Added a tightened post credit scene from Shazam 2 of Harcourt recruiting Billy Batson to the JS