Shazam! Fury of the Gods
Short description
Billy Batson and his foster siblings share the power to turn into adult superheroes by saying a single word, and they are still learning to balance teenage life with the duties that come with it. Their efforts in Philadelphia earn them more ridicule than respect, and Billy himself begins to doubt whether he deserves the role he has been given. The situation changes when a vengeful trio of ancient deities arrives on Earth, determined to reclaim magic they believe was taken from them. To protect their powers, their lives and the world around them, Billy and his family must confront these intruders.
David F. Sandberg directed the film, his fifth feature and a direct follow-up to his own Shazam! from 2019, working from a screenplay by Chris Morgan and Henry Gayden and produced by Peter Safran. Zachary Levi and Asher Angel again play the adult and teenage versions of Billy, with Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy, Rachel Zegler as Anthea, and Adam Brody and Ross Butler among the grown-up superhero forms. Roughly fifty credited actors and more than two hundred crew members worked on the production, which cost about 125 million dollars and returned around 134 million dollars worldwide.
Audience response was middling: on IMDb the film holds 5.9 from about 144,000 votes, and on TMDB it stands at 6.4 from a much smaller base of roughly 3,800. A critics' rating of 5.6 from 265 reviews places professional opinion slightly below the IMDb audience figure and well under the TMDB score.
What's left behind the scenes
- The end credits roll with Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation” (1968). Presley’s favorite comic book character was Captain Marvel Jr.
- When Shazam returns to the moment of breaking the staff, which was shown in David F. Sandberg’s film “Shazam!” (2019), this scene wasn’t taken from the 2019 film, but recreated and reshot. According to Sandberg, he decided that the difference in the costumes and hairstyles of the characters would be too noticeable, and besides, the role of the superhero Mary was taken over by Grace Caroline Currey from Michelle Borth in the 2019 film. Shazam’s cape no longer has a hood, and the superhero Freddy, played by Adam Brody, doesn’t float slightly to the right of center as in the first film of the franchise, but stands on the ground.
- DC Comics published a comic book about the main character’s family with eight stories by different authors. The plots of six stories were conceived by the actors playing the members of the Shazam family, the plot of another was conceived by director David F. Sandberg, and the plot of the last one – by screenwriter Henry Gayden.
- Grace Caroline Currey, who plays Mary in both her human and superhero form, replaced Michelle Borth from the comedic fantasy-action film “Shazam!” (David F. Sandberg, 2019) in this role. In different forms, her makeup simply varies slightly.
- The film's release was originally scheduled for April 1, 2022, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the release date was moved to November 4 of the same year, and then postponed again to March 17, 2023.
- The sentient feather Steve is derived from the “Historama” in the comics. It refers to a device that revealed the past, present, and future to its owner. In the comics, this device initially appeared as a television screen and then as a book.
- The daughters of Atlantis do not appear in the comics. These characters were created specifically for the film and were played by Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren.
- The film contains a reference to Italian film director Lucio Fulci (1927-1996), and Doctor Dario Bava (played by P.J. Byrne) is named after Italian directors who worked in the horror genre, Dario Argento and Mario Bava (1914-1980).
- The film features cyclops among other fictional creatures. Their appearance is borrowed from the cyclops in “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” (Nathan Juran, 1958), created by legendary animator Ray Harryhausen.
- In the doctor’s office, Annabelle – the doll from David F. Sandberg’s horror film “Annabelle: Creation” (2017) – is sitting on a chair. Grace Caroline Currey played Carol in that role. Here, she plays Mary.
Auditions in India
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