Production has officially wrapped on DCEU sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Thus, director David F. Sandberg has time to fine tune the movie, with Zachary Levi’s return as the title hero not hitting theaters until summer 2023.
The first installment was one of the most pleasant superhero surprises in years, delivering a light, breezy caper. It was a cross between an effects-driven spectacle and a body-swap coming-of-age comedy.
Shazam! remains most profitable in DCEU history, earning $366 million on a budget of under $100 million. Also, it garnered some of the strongest reviews Warner Bros.’ universe has ever seen. The new additions to the cast are more than capable of bringing the goods.
Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu play Hespera and Kalypso, daughters of Atlas with an axe to grind against Billy Batson’s alter ego. In an interview, Levi could barely contain his excitement over working with the Shazam! newcomers.
“Now we have these awesome villains in Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu, which by the way, is so badass, let me tell you. I can die a happy man, I’ve gotten to do scenes one-on-one with Helen Mirren. It was so crazy! Well, unfortunately, Lucy and I, I don’t want to spoil anything but, we’re nemeses who are circling each other a lot but don’t have a lot of face-to-face time. But we get some, we’ll see how that goes.
You know that they’re talented because you can see what they’ve done in the past, and their work, but you don’t know necessarily if they’re just going to be groovy people that are down to just like roll up their sleeves, and be creative, and have fun. And she was, and Helen was, and Rachel Zegler, who was also a new addition to the movie, everybody who was already returning, we already had such a beautiful thing, and then these new additions just made it even groovier.”
Shazam! Fury of the Gods has lost the element of surprise that its predecessor had, so the stakes have been raised for Sandberg and his team. Looking at how the opener turned out, there’s no reason to bet against them, especially when several screen heavyweights are joining the second outing.