It’s fairly common for movies to be delayed, but moving up a release date? That’s a rare occurrence. Fortunately, it’s a welcome surprise for fans of Zachary Levi’s portrayal of the DCEU superhero Shazam, who were originally going to have to wait until June 23 of next year to see him in that signature red costume again.
Because of a shakeup of the Warner Bros. schedule, according to Screenrant, both Black Adam and the The Flash were moved to later in the company’s release schedule. This means that Shazam! Fury of the Gods got moved up a whole six months.
The movie is reportedly a bit more “adult” this time around, with more mature humor and higher stakes than the first.
DC producer Peter Safran told IGN that since the kids in the movie have aged, it makes sense to up the maturity quotient a bit.
“I like that the kids are a little bit older so that you can lean into a little more adult humor and also just adult stakes and adult issues that one deals with it at 16 and 17 that you don’t deal with at 13 and 14,” he said.
David F. Sandberg is back in the directors chair, and most of the cast is back as well, with Rachel Zegler (West Side Story), Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren joining the cast.
The movie wrapped in August of last year, and has been in post-production ever since. It was originally scheduled for a later release date to make room for anticipated blockbusters like Aquaman and The Flash, but as we covered earlier, those films were pushed back, so now it’s all about Shazam.
The movie bows into theaters on December 16 of this year, the same day as another much-anticipated sequel: Avatar 2.
