If you’ve been paying close attention to Shazam!, you’ll likely recall the moment when director David Sandberg placed the DC community on red alert after announcing that the official reveal of Zachary Levi in costume was “right around the corner.” That was several months ago, though.
So, what gives? Turns out a change of plans delayed the official suit reveal (indefinitely, perhaps?) and Sandberg still isn’t sure what Warner Bros. has in mind for his 2019 standalone movie. Be that as it may, Levi himself came through the other week to give fans their first look at him in costume via some new promo art.
Suffice it to say, the reaction has been pretty mixed so far, and Sandberg’s found himself having to defend his decision on a number of occasions. That continues today, too, as while he was speaking on the Film Riot podcast, the director explained that they actually went through a few versions of the suit, as it kept changing throughout filming.
“Yes, there were a few iterations,” Sandberg said. “And you sort of have to keep changing stuff even after we started shooting because you realize things… You shoot the first scene and Zach (Levi) is like, ‘You know, I can’t move my hands properly with these gauntlets.’ So, we had to redesign that, or like the boots kept falling apart so it’s like, ‘Oh well, I guess we have to do something different there,’ It was sort of a constant process of updating and making it work better.”
Continuing on, he explained all the testing that goes into making sure the costume works on screen, as it’s not as easy as it sounds.
“You shoot the fabric [with] different lights,” he said. “Before you even have a costume, you test fabric samples with different patterns on them and all that. His lightning bolt lights up, so there was a lot of test to get that right.”
Imbued with the powers of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and the blisteringly fast Mercury, look for Zachary Levi and Co. to steer the DCEU in a decidedly different direction when Shazam! opens big on April 5th, 2019. Before then, however, we’ve got Aquaman to look forward to, which looks to make waves on December 21st, 2018.