New Line and DC Entertainment are doubling down on comic book hero Shazam!

New Line, which has been for over a decade developing a movie on the long-time DC character, will develop concurrently a movie centering on Black Adam, with Dwayne Johnson attached to star as Shazam’s arch-nemesis.

The move stems from last week’s high level meeting with Johnson and DC Films co-head and comics author Geoff Johns, after which Johnson took to social media to promise “hope, optimism & fun.”

But on a deeper level, the meeting led to a reconfiguring of the Shazam! movie. Johnson has been attached to play Black Adam since around 2008. Since that time, the actor has become arguably the biggest male actor on the planet. To execs, it made no sense to have a man of Johnson’s stature be just a villain and a supporting character in an expensive tentpole. Thus a decision was made to spin Black Adam into his own film.

Adam’s screen take involves him being an anti-hero. And it also mirrors recent developments in the DC comics, in stories written by Johns, where Adam, while still a villain, was fighting against enemies who sought to enslave his people.

No writer or filmmaker is attached to Black Adam. Shazam! has a script that is being worked by Henry Gayden, says one source.

More to come.

David F. Sandberg is in talks to direct “Shazam,” for New Line, TheWrap has exclusively learned.

Sandberg has “Annabelle 2” the sequel to 2014 supernatural horror film, “Annabelle,” set to be released by New Line on August 11th, 2017.

The Swedish filmmaker broke out with his 2016 debut “Lights Out,” which is based on his 2013 acclaimed horror short of the same name. A sequel to the film is also in the works at New Line.