As we approach the end of the DCU as we know it, Shazam! star Zachary Levi has opened up about his future as the character, and addressed the critical drubbing handed out to this year’s underperforming sequel Fury of the Gods.
Released in 2019, the original Shazam! has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 90% from critics and 82% from audiences, and grossed $367 million at the worldwide box-office. In comparison, Shazam! Fury of the Gods dropped earlier this year with 49% from critics and 86% from the audience, and fizzled out with $133 million in ticket receipts.
Now the Tangled and Chuck actor has been speaking with The FilmUp podcast (jump to 1:16:00) about whether he’ll return to the role of Shazam!, as well as the response to Fury of the Gods. Levi said “I don’t know what the future holds for it all because, unfortunately, the second movie was not as well received,” he continued “The audience score is still quite good, but the critics’ score was very oddly and perplexingly low, and people were insanely unkind.”
Levi then spoke about what he though the reasons for the film’s failure were, “I’m not saying Shazam! Fury of the Gods is some perfect… Orson Welles-like masterpiece, but it’s a good darn movie.” He continued, “I think even just the world, from the first movie to the second movie, the world has shifted so much. Social media has shifted so much. Hate, online hate and haters and trolls, and factions and all that has just gotten more galvanised in its toxicity. I think there are people who genuinely, unfortunately, want to destroy certain projects because they don’t like them, or they don’t like me, or they don’t like other people involved in them or whatever.”
Levi ended on an optimistic note for the legacy of his tenure as Shazam!, saying “I have no idea where we go from here. I just hope that or believe that history will show… it will be one of those things that people will go back, people will watch Fury of the Gods on home streaming or on a plane or whatever, and it will be this movie that they heard so much shit about and then they will be like, ‘Well, wait a minute.'”
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Do you agree with Levi? Let us know what you think of his comments and whether you enjoyed Fury of the Gods by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Bestowed with the powers of the gods, Billy Batson and his fellow foster kids are still learning how to juggle teenage life with having adult Super Hero alter-egos. But when the Daughters of Atlas, a vengeful trio of ancient gods, arrive on Earth in search of the magic stolen from them long ago, Billy—aka Shazam—and his family are thrust into a battle for their superpowers, their lives, and the fate of their world.
Shazam: Fury of the Gods is directed by David F. Sandberg and sees the return of Zachary Levi alongside fellow cast members Asher Angel as Billy Batson, Jack Dylan Grazer and Adam Brody as Freddy Freeman, Faith Herman and Meagan Good as Darla Dudley, Grace Fulton as Mary Bromfield, Ian Chen and Ross Butler as Eugene Choi, Jovan Armand and D.J. Cotrona as Pedro Pena, Marta Milans as Rosa Vasquez, Cooper Andrews as Victor Vasquez, and Djimon Hounsou as The Wizard. New additions to the cast include Helen Mirren as Hespera, Lucy Liu as Kalypso, and Rachel Zegler as Anthea.
Source – Deadline
