A cameo from a certain member of the Justice League in Shazam! Fury of the Gods was planned from the very beginning, although the director wasn’t sure if it would happen.
During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, director David F. Sandberg was asked when the movie’s surprise Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) appearance was written into the story. “Right from the start and from the first script,” Sandberg said. “She was always supposed to be in it, but I didn’t believe it was going to happen because of what happened on the first movie where we had to do a headless Superman cameo. I thought that was going to happen here, too.” Sandberg’s “headless Superman” remark refers to the ending of the first Shazam! in 2019, when Superman is briefly shown from the neck down. This was because actor Henry Cavill was unavailable for filming at the time.
Shazam! Gets Creative With the DC Universe
Sandberg went on to say that, if Gadot wasn’t available, he may have brought back Hespera (Helen Mirren) to restore the Wizard’s staff after it’s destroyed during the film’s climax. “So I started to think, ‘Okay, when she can’t do it or when it falls apart, how do we bring Shazam back to life? Will we have to bring Helen Mirren’s character, Hespera, back? What are we going to do?’ But then it actually did happen, which was great, because then we could poke fun at the headless cameo of the first movie, with the Wizard dream sequence and things like that. But we never could have done that if we didn’t actually have Gal at the end because people would’ve been furious.”
Wonder Woman wasn’t the only DC cameo originally planned for the movie. While Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson) himself never shows up to battle his arch-nemesis, the Justice Society from Black Adam very nearly appeared during the movie’s post-credits scene. According to earlier comments from Sandberg, the Justice Society was supposed to personally speak to Shazam (Zachary Levi) at the end, but Sandberg learned the actors couldn’t appear just three days before the scene would be filmed. Some last-minute phone calls to producers were made, and Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and John Economos (Steve Agee) from The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker were written into the scene instead.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods continues the adventures of teenage Billy Batson and his foster siblings, who all gained powers from mythological gods thanks to the ancient Wizard (Djimon Honsou) in the first movie. The sequel pits Shazam against the Daughters of Atlas, who hope to steal the Wizard’s power for themselves and take revenge for the death of their father. As Shazam’s friends lose their powers, he must stop the Daughter Kalypso (Lucy Liu) from conquering Earth with an army of monsters.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is now playing in theaters.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
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