Shazam! Fury of the Gods Star Rachel Zegler Responds to Negative Reviews

By Cameron Bonomolo

Shazamily member Rachel Zegler is defending the less-than-thunderous critical reception of Shazam! Fury of the Gods. DC and New Line Cinema's Shazam! sequel opened over the weekend to tepid box office and negative reviews on critic aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, where it has a "rotten" score of 53% compared to the 2019 film's stellar 90%. The DC Extended Universe-set sequel also fared worse than its predecessor with opening-night moviegoers: audiences graded Shazam! 2 with a B+ CinemaScore compared to an A for the original, on par with 2016's Suicide Squad and 2020's Wonder Woman 1984.

Addressing the second Shazam!'s negative reception on Twitter, Zegler pointed to Fury of the Gods' 88% verified audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and urged potential ticket-buyers to "give it a chance."

"Our film is actually really good! but mostly i just absolutely loved making it and the people i met whilst doing so :) go see it! give it a chance. we have an 85% audience score for a reason," Zegler tweeted. "some people out there and just being… senselessly mean. and it's unnecessary. and i know, i know, 'if you can't handle the heat…' and all that nonsense, and you're right. but our film is actually very good. it's just cool to hate on fun nowadays. that's okay. we're good."

Shazam! 2 topped the box office at #1, but it's less-than-super $30.5 million haul is among the lowest of the DCEU and a 43% drop from the 2019 film's $53.5 million domestic opening. Director David F. Sandberg weighed in on the disappointing debut on Reddit, writing he "saw where this was heading a long time ago." The Shazam sequel has a reported budget of $110 million and a marketing price tag of $100 million. 

In a previous interview, Zegler described star Zachary Levi's pitch for a potential third film as a "zombie plot," adding it's "Evil Dead meets Superman meets Big, which doesn't sound like it should work, but I think it might." The film's post-credits scenes leave the door open for a Shazam! 3, but the Shazamily's future is in doubt with James Gunn and Peter Safran's looming DC Universe reset.  

Starring Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Adam Brody, Ross Butler, Meagan Good, D.J. Cotrona, Grace Caroline Currey, Faithe Herman, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand, Marta Milans, Cooper Andrews, Djimon Hounsou, Rachel Zegler, Lucy Liu, and Helen Mirren, Shazam! Fury of the Gods is in theaters now.

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