Zachary Levi Says A Chuck Movie Is Happening

Zachary Levi returns to the role of Shazam in this week’s Shazam!: Fury of the Gods, but he is already looking forward to returning to another of his most famous roles. For five seasons on NBC, Levi played Chuck Bartowski on Chuck, a spy comedy about an average guy who found himself dragged into the intelligence world and faced off against some of the most dangerous criminals on the planet. The series, which also starred Yvonne Strahovsky and Matt Bomer, aired from 2007 until 2012, making Levi a familiar face to millions of Americans. 

In the years since the show ended, Levi and his fellow cast members have frequently talked about returning to the world of Chuck in a follow-up movie. The series finale was controversial, and some fans have long hoped for a cleaner “happy ending” to Chuck and Sarah’s story.

“Chuck fans are some of my favorite people in the world,” Levi told Sirius XM’s Jess Cagle. “They have buoyed my career so long and, and, and they continue to grow. I, I mean, we have been on every streaming platform at this point, and more and more people find it with each iteration, and, which is even more reason why I keep trying to make this darn Chuck movie. And I think I’ve convinced the people at Warner Bros. to let me do it at some point. I don’t know when this is. I mean, this is all still kind of nascent stages, but Yeah. But Chuck fans are delightful. and the Shazam fans are delightful too. But you do get a lot of people that are not, that are, that are more comic book fans than let’s say, even Zach fans or Shazam fans. And they’re, they can be very critical sometimes, you know, like all the Chuck fans are fans, because they like to show, but then there are some purists within the comic book worlds that are like, ‘well, you didn’t do the version of Shazam that I wanted you to do, so I don’t like what this…’ There’s only one version of Chuck.”

You can see the video below.

“I’ve been trying to make a Chuck movie since before we even finished the show,” Levi added. “I saw the writing on the wall, I saw a lot of the streaming stuff starting to pop up. I saw…Veronica Mars, it crowdfunded. So I was like, clearly there’s an appetite for people wanting to see additions to the series that they, you know, held dear in their heart. And our fans, Chucksters are, I almost use an expletive, our fans frigging fantastic people and die-hards. And I know that they’re there. I know that they would support it. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to slice it. Warner Bros. owns the rights to it. I’m in early talks with heads there to be like, ‘Hey guys, you know, I’m now your, your superhero over your Warner Bros. films. Let me let, let me use that goodwill and let me go make this.’ Cuz I think, uh, look, I know all the cast would be in, they’ve already said that totally down to do it. I think Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak, our creators are down, they’re down to write it and you know, bring the band back together. It’s just a matter of Warner Bros. saying, ‘yeah, we’re down and here’s a budget and go make that movie.’ Cuz I listen, Chuck was basically a little mini eighties action movie every week anyway. So it’s not like we don’t know how to do it. We just have a little more budget in time and go make a proper movie. I think it would be so much fun.”

Shazam!: Fury of the Gods is in theaters now.