Lucy Liu Cast as a Villain in Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Lucy Liu will battle the Shazamily as the villain Kalypso in Shazam! Fury of the Gods. The Kill Bill and Elementary star will play the sister of Hespera (the recently-cast Helen Mirren), described as a daughter of Atlas, and does not have an exact counterpart in DC Comics lore. Mirren and Liu's casting comes after the DC Films and New Line Cinema Shazam! sequel, again directed by David F. Sandberg, added up-and-coming Steven Spielberg's West Side Story star Rachel Zegler in a key role earlier in the year opposite returning leading men Zachary Levi and Asher Angel.

Liu, whose credits include the big-screen Charlie's Angels and its 2003 sequel Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, joins a cast that includes returning Shazam! kids Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), Eugene (Ian Chen), Pedro (Jovan Armand), Darla (Faithe Herman) and Mary (Grace Fulton). The 2019 film ended with Batson's foster family, except for parents Rosa (Marta Milans ) and Victor Vasquez (Cooper Andrews), transforming into the superhero Shazam family (Adam Brody, Ross Butler, D.J. Cotrona, Meagan Good, and Michelle Borth).

In the DC Comics and the DC Extended Universe canon, Billy Batson (Angel) — who transforms into an adult-sized superhero (Levi) when he yells the magic word "Shazam!" — draws his powers from Atlas and other Greek Gods: Solomon, Hercules, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury.

Asked about the sequel's villain or villains during last summer's virtual DC FanDome event, Sandberg said he "can't really talk about" the new enemy replacing Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), but did say "a lot of people will be surprised" because the villains in Fury of the Gods are "gonna be a little unexpected."

Sandberg also confirmed at the time that Shazam fans can expect to see more superhero action from the brightly-colored costumed Shazamily, saying at FanDome: "Now they're all superheroes, they're all a family with superpowers. And now we finally get to see that. We only got a glimpse of that in the first movie, so that's something to look forward to."

Shazam! Fury of the Gods is scheduled to open in theaters on June 2, 2023.