Ah, so that’s what they’re doing with Shazam! The first trailer for David F Sandberg’s DC superhero movie is here and it’s looking like a superhero riff on Big, but with more punching and supervillains.
Well, it certainly looks like a change of direction for the director of Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation. This looks like it could be a really fun time at the movies, with Zachary Levi as the excitable superheroic alter ego of 14 year old orphan Billy Batson (Asher Angel), with IT’s Jack Dylan Grazer as his hype-man Freddy. Mark Strong is on villain duties as Dr Thaddeus Sivana, and Djimon Hounsou stars as The Wizard who chooses Billy to be the champion.
It does also look like DC has taken those “not fun” criticisms to heart because with this and Aquaman, it looks like the grim and gritty days might be over (until those Joker movies come out).
“We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Asher Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Zachary Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart—inside a ripped, godlike body—Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he’ll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong).”
SHAZAM! is set for release in April 2019. Keep up with the latest genre news with the new issue of SciFiNow.
