‘Shazam!’ Director Trolls Fans With Fake Teaser Trailer on April Fool’s Day

Shazam! is currently in the middle of production, and it looks like fans hoping to see official footage from the film might have to wait a little bit longer.

David F. Sandberg, who is directing the DC Films venture, recently released a “teaser trailer” for the film on his Twitter account. You can check it out below.

The teaser opens with footage of rolling stormclouds, marked by a voice saying “Billy Batson, it is time.” From there, the teaser syncs right into footage from the 1970s Shazam! television show, which is accompanied by AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”. And at the end of the video, a title card comes on screen: “Shazam: Revenge of the Ponysmasher”, a reference to Sandberg’s online username.

Of course, seeing as today is April Fool’s Day, its safe to assume that a lot of fans expected the teaser to have some sort of catch. And as you watch the actual video, there are quite a few early giveaways that it’s fake, including the fact that it sounds like Sandberg himself is doing the narration.

This certainly isn’t the first time that Sandberg has trolled Shazam! fans, from an already-iconic “first look” at the script, to pieces of “concept art”, to a first “teaser poster” for the film. And in a way, these jokes from Sandberg seem to accurately represent the comedic tone of the film, something that was slightly new to the director.

“This will be very different than what I’ve done in the feature space, because it’s not a horror movie and it’s a much lighter tone,” Sandberg said during an interview last year. “But it’s something that I look forward to trying out, even though I plan to return to horror in some fashion. My background, back in Sweden, before I started doing horror shorts, I was doing animated comedy shorts. It’s not totally alien to me to have more of a comedy approach. I look forward to taking that on in a feature.”

And while fans don’t know when they’re going to see a first look at the film – or at an official look at Zachary Levi’s Shazam! costume – it’s clear that Sandberg is going to have a little fun with fans in the meantime.

What did you think of Sandberg’s April Fool’s Day tease? What are you hoping to see in the real teaser for Shazam? Sound off in the comments below.

Shazam! will fly into theaters on April 5, 2019.