Shazam! Writer Reveals Origin of DC Movie's Most Shocking Scene

Former DC Films chief Walter Hamada left Warner Bros. Discovery yesterday, but according to Shazam! writer Henry Gayden, it was Hamada whose instincts led to one of the film's most surprising scenes: the one where Billy Batson realizes that he was not orphaned, but abandoned. In a Twitter thread dedicated to the moment, Gayden revealed that early drafts of the script found Billy visiting his parents' grave, up until Hamada suggested writing an alternate version where Billy's mother was alive, but did not want to reunite with him. Gayden admitted that his first instinct was to say that the idea was too dark, and would not fit with the tone of the relatively family-friendly Shazam!. 

According to Gayden, he wrote the scene assuming it would never be used. Still, he said, it became an indispensable part of the narrative.

Here's how he explains it:

Screenwriters tend to grouse about studio execs and their notes (sometimes it's deserved), but I always tell this story as an example of how transformative a good note can be, and since Walt left DC today, here it is...

In early drafts of Shazam!, Billy's parents were dead. 

Late in Act 2, he discovered their gravestones in a Philly cemetery. It was very rote, very "we've-seen-this-in-other-movies," and yet, I thought – I hoped! – the visual of a kid finding his parents' gravestones might prove affecting.

Then, one weekend, out of nowhere, Walt called me up and said, "What if Billy's mom is still alive but doesn't want him?"

My immediate response was: "No. No way. That's wayyyy too heavy for a movie this lighthearted."

To be clear, the writer (me) was telling the studio exec/president (Walt) that he was going too far out on a limb, that he was taking too big of a swing creatively. I was adamant about how it wouldn't work.

So we ended the conversation with him saying, "Just try writing it. He finds his mom, and she doesn't want him. If it doesn't work, we have the cemetery scene. Try it."

I hung up. All I had was the basic idea. No character. No setting. I sat down and tried to write the scene.

An hour later, it was my favorite scene in the movie.

That was the scene that movie needed -- so much so that when we were filming it, I told our producer on set, "If this scene doesn't work, the whole movie doesn't work."

Unbeknownst to me, the actress playing Billy's mom (Caroline Palmer: @Care_ all praise) was 10 feet away from me when I said that. She later told me that my words chilled her. Terrified her. I can't believe I did that to her. Luckily, she was even better than we dreamed.

I still believe the movie wouldn't fully work without that scene.

And it was Walt's idea.

I literally told him he was crazy.

Shazam! has a unique place in the DC film universe: it was made much cheaper than movies like Justice League or Wonder Woman, so it earned a smaller box office haul, but that was ultimately enough for the studio to deem it a hit. A sequel is on the way, along with a spinoff in the form of Black Adam, which is going very much the other way. Not only did it spend a ton of money, and introduce numerous superheroes, but the film also looks so dark, nobody would be surprised by a scene like the one with Billy's mom. That film is coming to theaters tomorrow, and Shazam!: Fury of the Gods will be out in March.

Shazam! is currently streaming on HBO Max. You can buy it on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.