DC has had its fair share of films with rocky receptions in the last decade or so, but discourse surrounding Shazam! Fury of the Gods is turning out to be a dumpster fire the likes of which we haven’t seen in a good few years.
Amidst a modest-at-best box office haul and a weak critical reception, Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ Anthea, Rachel Zegler, took to Twitter to implore fans to head out and see the film, all the while accusing some of the film’s harshest naysayers of being “senselessly mean:”
Zegler has something of a point – while the film’s Tomatometer score is sitting at a dismal 53 percent critic rating, audiences appear to have enjoyed the film a fair bit more, rating it at 87 percent on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing.
What didn’t help Shazam! Fury of the God’s case were some reportedly out of context comments from the sequel’s director, David F. Sandberg, who made a sarcastic comment on Reddit about not particularly caring for the film’s box office haul as he was paid upfront. Sandberg would later take to Twitter to clarify his comments.
However, the dramas for Sandberg didn’t end there – with the director having to debunk accusations that the film’s big DCEU cameo was a deepfake and not the actual star. All the while, Shazam! star Zachary Levi was out in the wild battling with trolls.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is currently in theaters, if you’re inclined to head out and see what we thought was a fairly middling entry in the big-screen DC franchise.
