Shazam! burst onto screens last week and did a fantastic job supporting Aquaman with DC’s new ‘fun’ agenda. Basically, a lot of people loved it, and it sounds like Warner Bros and New Line taken notice: the studios have already signed the film’s screenwriter Henry Gayden to pen a sequel, according to The Wrap. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Before working on Shazam!, Gayden wrote the screenplay and story for family sci-fi film Earth To Echo, and is currently busy with Patrick Brice horror There’s Someone Inside Your House and Phil Lord and Christopher Miller sci-fi Last Human.
Director David F Sandberg and producer Peter Safran are both also expected to return to work on Shazam! 2.
On its opening weekend, Shazam! managed to exceed expectations and sweep in a domestic grossing of $56.8 million, and $159.1 million worldwide.
Shazam! stars Zachary Levi and Asher Angel as Billy Batson, Mark Strong as Dr Thaddeus Sivana, Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy, Grace Fulton as Mary, Faithe Herman as Darla, Ian Chen as Eugene, Jovan Armand as Pedro, Cooper Andrews as Victor, Marta Milans as Rosa, and Djimon Hounsou as the Wizard.
You can read the film’s synopsis here:
We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (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 (Strong).
Shazam! is in cinemas from 5 April 2019. Get all the latest superhero news with every issue of SciFiNow.