Shazam! Director on Black Adam Crossover and Hidden Cameos

Of the many crossovers DC Comics fans are hoping to see from characters on the big screen, among the top tier wishes on that list is Shazam! and Black Adam. Originally slated for a duel in the first Shazam! movie, the characters portrayed by Zachary Levi and Dwayne Johnson were pulled apart, for now. There will be two Shazam! movies and a Black Adam movie before they clash, bringing the popular DC Comics rivalry to life in live action. While Black Adam is slated for release in December of 2021 and Shazam! 2 is scheduled to begin production this year for a release in April of 2022, there is not a ton of collaboration between each film’s respective filmmakers leading into their crossing of paths.

Shazam! director David F. Sandberg is going to be joining ComicBook.com’s Quarantine Watch Party on Wednesday night, celebrating the first movie with fans live on social media. Ahead of the event, he caught up with ComicBook.com, promising he is still hard at work on the sequel, revealing that the Black Adam movie is not having a large impact on his creative efforts.

“No, I haven’t talked to [the Black Adam team],” Sandberg said. “I mean, I assume DC is keeping tabs, that they have the bigger plan. But I don’t know what they’re doing. I’m just curious to see it, you know?”

In fact, the Black Adam project as a whole has offered little in terms of details of the film despite having been in development for years. “Black Adam, how he starts, he starts off as a villain,” Black Adam star Dwayne Johnson told ComicBook.com in July of 2019. “Then, he becomes an anti-hero. And then he might become a hero or we might not.” Johnson also revealed to ComicBook.com that the Black Adam movie will introduce the JSA to the big screen.

As it stands now, Shazam! is planning to begin production later this year — a plan which might have no choice but to change. “We’ll see how long this goes, because I mean, we were going to start shooting this year,” Sandberg said. “But, I mean, who knows how long this will go on? I mean, it feels like every movie gets delayed now, so we’ll see what happens with Shazam!. But so far, I’ve been working on the script. We can still do that, so that’s being done and then, yeah, we’ll just see in a couple of months how it looks, you know?”

While on the topic of characters interacting with Shazam!, it’s fun to point out that Sandberg himself plays character who should soon be interacting with Zachary Levi’s hero. In the post-credits scene of Shazam!, the DC Comics villain of Mr. Mind appeared, caterpillar form and all. The voice for the character was none other than the film’s director. “I actually gave the whole project that I made to the sound designers and like, ‘Just use this. Don’t change anything,’” Sandberg said. “You just sort of fall in love with a certain thing, and then you just can’t, in your head, change it. So it’s like, ‘Yeah, we’ll just keep my temp voice in there.’” As for whether or not he’ll be reprising the role in the Shazam! sequel, Sandberg did not say.

“When you’re doing temp stuff, you sort of throw your own voice in there,” Sandberg explained. “I’m the a–hole boyfriend, the mom’s boyfriend, as well, which is one of those temp things, where you throw it in and then you’re, ‘Yeah, let’s keep it.’”

How does Quarantine Watch Party work? Simple. At 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday night, everybody who wishes to attend the Quarantine Watch Party presses “play” on their copy of Shazam!, be it a 4K or blu-ray disc, a digital download, or other personal copy. From there, those attending the Party follow and use #QuarantineWatchParty and #Shazam on Instagram and Twitter to stay involved with the conversation throughout the movie. The best tweets will get featured in ComicBook.com’s official recap of the event!

Shazam!‘s Quarantine Watch Party begins at 9pm ET on Wednesday night. Shazam! is scheduled to hit theaters on April 1, 2022.