Last month, there were gossips that Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam will not be presented in the new Shazam! movie. Alternatively, he will get his own spin-off – the information which Shazam director David F. Sandberg has confirmed. The director was at the time promoting his new thriller movie called Annabelle: Creation and he made a confirmation about Dwayne Johnson being cast as Black Adam. He confessed that there were some prior scripts that did include The Rock’s character in the film. However, now the focus will be only on the Shazam! character. This is what the director had to say about it:
“So, The Rock has been cast as Black Adam, but he’s not going to be featured in this film. There’ve been variations of the script, like before I came along, where, you know, variations where Black Adam was in and out and, you know. But now, this is about Shazam.”
When Film Riot was conducting an interview with him, he also affirmed that following Aquaman, Shazam will be the next DC movie to go to into production. However, he didn’t want to share the details of the time and location of the filming. Initially, there was a thought that Shazam! wouldn’t get its turn, due to movies such as Gotham City Sirens or Ben Affleck’s The Batman. But now we’ve got the director’s verification that Shazam! is the next title to go into the production. The initial report said that filming will begin in February 2018, despite the fact that there was no confirmation of the date. Also, a lot remains to be done until then, like casting the main character and others in the supporting roles. In the interview, Sandberg was asked which Shazam! comics he has been reading in order to prepare for this movie. This is what he said:
“I’m taking it all in. Some of those really old ones are quite fun, when he’s, like, fighting Hitler. Stuff like that. No, ’cause he’s been around since the ’40s for, like, as long as Superman. So there’s a lot to read and that’s also interesting because he sort of has a couple of different origin stories or a couple of different takes on it. You know, you have the most recent sort of Geoff Johns version and then you have Ordwell version and then you have those really old versions. It’s going to be interesting, just because how hardcore the fans are. Already, if I tweet a little something, suddenly there’s blog post, and no matter what you do, some people will be disappointed.”
If February 2018 is the date when production starts, then it could happen that the studio and director could make April 5, 2019, the release date – a date mentioned a couple of years ago, however, it still needs to be verified. Also, Shazam! could take two dates Warner Bros. set aside just last month – February 14, 2024, or June 5, 2024.
