The Shazam! suit apparently cost upwards of a million dollars to make according to the film’s costume designer.
Making a movie isn’t cheap, let alone a major blockbuster, and especially for a superhero movie. The costs involved are incredible, from the cast to the special effects, it isn’t cheap. The costumes can be pricy too but the suits for Shazam! might just take the cake.
According to Shazam! costume designer, Leah Butler, in a recent interview with Total Film (via Syfy Wire), each suit that the hero (played by Zachary Levi) wears in the film costs a hefty sum: “Each suit costs, oh boy, upwards of a million? We have ten suits.”
Explaining the work that went into the suit, she said: “The exterior suit is a spandex suit that goes over a musculature suit, and each muscle has been sculpted on the body of Zach, so it accents and highlights his shape and size.”
Shazam’s suit also is required to light up in the movie, which, as Butler explains, involves a lot electronics: “There is actually a battery in the back — we luckily had a cape to cover it all up or I don’t know where we would have put all that stuff — and it is remotely lit through a switchboard operator. There is wiring throughout the costume. It’s a 26-volt AA rechargeable battery. It lasts about two hours at full charge.
“It took 16 weeks to build the costume. We had to scan Zach’s body and start building the costume even before he started his very strict regime — his diet and working out.”
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We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Asher Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Zachary Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart—inside a ripped, godlike body—Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he’ll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong).
Shazam will see Zachary Levi starring as the titular superhero, with Asher Angel as his young alter-ego Billy Batson, Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy Freeman, Ian Chen as Eugene Choi, Jovan Armand as Pedro Peña, Grace Fulton as Mary Marvel, Cooper Andrews as Victor Vasquez, Faithe Herman as Darla Dudley, Mark Strong as Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, Djimon Hounsou as the Wizard, Adam Brody as Freddie Freeman, Ross Butler as Eugene Choi, D. J. Cotrona as Pedro Pena, Meagan Good as Darla Dudley, and Michelle Borth as Mary Bromfield. The film is set for release on April 5th 2019.
