'Shazam!' Set Poster Reveals Joker Easter Egg

Photos from the set of the Shazam movie reveal a callback to the origin of the Joker.The photos [...]

Photos from the set of the Shazam movie reveal a callback to the origin of the Joker.

The photos show a set of three posters for boxing matches. At the bottom of one of these posters isn't an advertisement for Ace Chemicals.

Take a look below:

Several versions of the Joker's origin story have him landing in a vat of chemicals at the Ace Chemical plant. In Suicide Squad, he dives into the vat intentionally. Most versions of Joker's origin have him falling into the vat during an encounter with Batman.

Shazam seems to be taking place in the city of Philadelphia, but a reference to Ace Chemicals places it firmly within the DC Universe.

Joker is unlikely to play a role in Shazam, but the magically-powered superhero has his own villain to deal with Dr. Sivana, played by Mark Strong. Strong also played Sinestro in the Green Lantern movie.

"Sinestro was meant to go evil in the second one," Strong explains. "The final frame of the first film is him trying on the yellow ring and his whole costume going yellow, and that was when he went evil. So I was really looking forward to that. The film didn't do as well as they expected… so it never got made. So I was definitely conscious that Sivana is almost like the next stage that I wasn't able to take."

Strong has previously said that playing Sivana is an opportunity to finally follow through on that missed opportunity.

''I'm playing an evil bastard called Doctor Sivana, they are always the best characters to play, the most fun," Strong revealed. "I was Sinestro in Green Lantern, which I thought was a rather good film, but it didn't do what they wanted. So I feel like I've got unfinished business in the DC world. I played a pretty evil character in that, and he was meant to get even worse in the second one but that never happened, but I think I'm going to get the chance to do that in Shazam!, I hope so.

''I've been training like a madman. I'm about to go over and see the stunt guys, I've been trying all of these harnesses on and I think I'm going to be doing lots of flying around and firing electricity out of my hands.''

Shazam currently has a 3.69 out of 5 ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating, making it the 19th most anticipated upcoming comic book movie among ComicBook.com Users. Let us know how excited you are about Shazam by giving the movie your own personal ComicBook.com User Anticipation Rating below.

Shazam will open in theaters on April 5, 2019.

Other upcoming DC Extended Universe films include Aquaman on December 21, 2018, Wonder Woman 2 on November 1, 2019, Cyborg in 2020, and Green Lantern Corps in 2020.

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