Most recently, a series of viral tweets and pictures showed Taylor Cahill posing as Wonder Woman on the set of Shazam!: Fury of the Gods. The viral posts led many to believe that Gal Gadot’s cameo in the movie was the result of CGI and that Cahill shot the scenes in her place. However, we now have a re-confirmation that the person featured in the cameo was, indeed, Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot.
Director David F. Sandberg took to Twitter today and posted a series of tweets offering fans a glimpse behind the scenes of that particular sequence from the movie. He further revealed that he had to direct Gadot virtually as he could not travel to London to shoot it himself. The 25-second clip features Sandberg running the sequence with Gadot visible on his computer screens, thus, debunking the CGI rumors once and for all.
Sandberg tweeted about how well the scene was shot despite him not being present in person. He explained how he had shot the scene earlier with a stand-in, which gave them exact measurements for camera height and lens placements for the set with Gadot.
That stand-in must have been Taylor Cahill, with whom Sandberg would have shot the sequence before shooting with Gadot. It’s common in filmmaking to shoot a scene with both actors and stand-ins or doubles to make adjustments for action, stunts, and additional shots.
Gal Gadot’s sequence was a promising cameo, especially when some primary Wonder Woman projects, including Wonder Woman 3, have been shelved at DC Studios. But that doesn’t mean that Gadot is still DCU’s Princess Diana, given that a potential reset is coming to the franchise with The Flash.
Sandberg has taken to Twitter multiple times since the release of Shazam!: Fury of the Gods to share his experience directing the film and has been vocal about the film’s polarizing reviews. He has even talked about the film getting vastly different audience and critics’ scores. Shazam!: Fury of the Gods was an exciting project for the cast and Sandberg, and they anticipated similarly enthusiastic responses from the fans over it. However, the film failed to make a mark on either the box office or the critics’ scorecards.
For now, though there was a post-credits tease, Shazam! lingers in limbo amidst the development of the Gunn-headed DCU. All we can do is hope the character gets someplace in the new series, even if it means revitalizing it from scratch.