With Shazam! Fury of the Gods coming out soon, director David F. Sandberg is teasing what we can expect from the film and is hyping it up. He wants people to see the movie so badly, that he is now comparing it to Marvel’s Avengers.
During a recent interview with Total Film/Games Radar, Sandberg said, “It’s like a mini-Avengers movie,” and he went on to explain why saying:
“That’s how I saw it because there are so many characters. You have all these heroes, you have the villains, you have the monsters… It’s a lot of movie packed into its runtime. And it’s complicated. Just shooting and staging up to 11 characters in a scene… Where do you put everyone? It’s really hard!”
Hopefully, Sandberg has what it takes to juggle that kind of filmmaking and storytelling madness and deliver a great sequel. When you pack so much stuff like that into a movie, things could easily get messy. I hope that he managed to keep it together. He went on to say:
“On the first one we had a lower budget and it was a smaller movie. It felt like, ‘We can’t really compete with the other superhero movies for action and scale, so we have to focus on character and humour – what makes it different.’ On this one we got more resources so we could actually compete with the other superhero movies.”
The first movie was so good because it focused on character and humor! That’s what made the film unique. I hope they manage to keep that with this bigger-scale movie. I don’t see why the director feels like he has to compete with other superhero movies, just go out and tell a good story like the first one! All these superhero franchises feel they need to go bigger, and while there’s a time and place for that, it’s the smaller-scale films that tell great stories that end up being the best ones.
Sandberg went on to talk about the heart of the movie and how it’s about family saying:
“The story is very much about Billy being afraid of losing this family. He found a family in the first movie, and now they’re getting old enough to have to move out of a group home and start getting jobs. So he’s terrified. They have to balance their regular lives of going to school and having jobs with being superheroes. It’s tough for them.”
The movie “will continue the story of teenage Billy Batson, who upon reciting the magic word ‘SHAZAM!’ is struck by the Living Lightning of the gods and transformed into his adult superhero alter ego, Shazam. He has the powers of six gods: the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury.”
Billy Batson and his foster siblings, who can all transform into superheroes, jump into action and fight against the Daughters of Atlas to save the world from a weapon that could destroy it. As you’ll see, this isn’t an easy feat and Billy starts to doubt himself and if he can actually pull it off.
David F. Sandberg is back as the director and the characters and cast in the film include Billy Baston (Asher Angel and Zachary Levi), Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer and Adam Brody), Eugene (Ian Chen and Ross Butler), Pedro (Jovan Armand and D.J. Cotrona), Darla (Faithe Herman and Meagan Good), and Mary (Grace Fulton and Michelle Borth). Helen Mirren is taking on the role of Hespera and Lucy Liu is playing Kalypso.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods will hit theaters on March 17th, 2023. I also included four new character posters below:
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
