New DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Pater Safran recently introduced the first projects in their rebooted shared cinematic universe, and some of the main heroes from the franchise will not be returning. With so many changes coming, the future of Shazam is currently unclear despite the fact that the new movie sets up some exciting ideas for the future. Shazam! Fury of the Gods hits theaters tomorrow, so ComicBook.com‘s Brandon Davis took part in a press event for the new DC film, and director David F. Sandberg revealed that the recent changes to DC did not alter the Shazam! sequel.
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“That all happened after. We were already… I mean, the movie was delivered like end of October of last year,” Sandberg explained. When asked how much the movie changes since the original concept was created, Sandberg shared, “We started actually sort of right after the first one, started thinking about what the second one would be. And at first … Since the first one follows The New 52 comics pretty closely, we did at first look at what they had done in the comics since the first movie, and we sort of started down that path, but that story was very sort of fantasy-like because they go into all the doors in the room of doors and build different lands.”
He added, “There was some fun opportunities there. That’s how we could get Tawky Tawny, the talking tiger, into the movie from one of those sort of animal lands and things, but to me, it didn’t feel right because what I liked so much about the first movie is that it’s a pretty grounded world where something fantastical happens in. And, that was sort of fantastical things happening in a fantastical place, and it was just sort of all fantasy, and it sort of felt… We want to still keep it in a somewhat grounded world.”
Sandberg concluded, “And, that’s when we started talking about, well, his powers are from the Gods and things and mythological characters, so what if they’re coming back to take his powers? And at first, we were actually wanting to have Mr. Mind and Dr. Sivana, like it was Mr. Mind’s plan to bring the Gods here, like part of a bigger master plan, but it was just too much story. Even without that, it’s a two-hour and ten-minute movie, you know?”
Shazam! Fury of the Gods will be released exclusively in theaters on March 17th.
