‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ ending explained

Shazam! Fury of the Gods has finally started to roll out in theaters around the world and marks one of the final entries in the DC Universe before James Gunn and Peter Safran’s Gods and Monsters arc kicks off a new era for the franchise. 

Without taking away from the spectacle of the next big superhero blockbuster of the year, the number one question that is likely running through the minds of fans in the know is whether or not the Shazam! sequel is in any way consequential to the future of the DC Universe, given the big leadership shakeup at DC Studios last year.

If you’re here for the answer to that question, we’ll save you some time and say, no – not really. As we perhaps may have anticipated, there were no particularly game-changing setups for future live-action DC projects that would get the Snyderverse fandom crawling out of the woodwork with pitchforks and demanding James Gunn’s head.

With that, here’s everything that transpired in the final act of David F. Sandberg’s film Shazam! Fury of the Gods, with Zachary Levi returning to reprise his titular role. 

What happened at the end of Shazam! Fury of the Gods?

Kalypso (Lucy Liu) breaks off from her sisters Hespera (Helen Mirren) and Anthea (Rachel Zegler) and goes rogue, planting the Seed of Life in the middle of a baseball field in Philadelphia. The paracausal plant wasn’t meant for Earth’s soil, so its root spiral out of control and cause utter chaos, spawning scores of otherworldly beasts.

Billy Batson’s family all lose their powers, as does Freddy’s (Jack Dylan Grazer) deity crush Anthea, leaving Billy to face off against Kalypso and her dragon alone. He steals the staff away from Kalypso and convinces a dying Hespera to shrink the bubble around Philadelphia down to just the area surrounding the baseball field.

Billy sparks several bolts of lightning inside the shrunken dome, which continues to bounce around the showdown arena and overcharge the staff to a point where it is able to eviscerate everything within, including Kalypso, the dragon, and most saddeningly, himself. 

Of course, this being the cookie-cutter superhero film it is, they couldn’t let Billy stay dead. As the family and the Wizard (Djimon Hounsou) gather around Billy’s grave on Mount Olympus, none other than Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman arrives on the scene, and not just as a headless cameo this time. She again empowers the magic staff with her powers, which breathes new life into the godly dimension and resurrects Billy. The child trapped in a man’s body boldly asks his superhero crush on a date, to which she tells him to just keep on keeping on with saving the world. 

Billy’s family lives happily ever after, and both Anthea and the Wizard choose to spend some time in our plane of existence to better understand humanity and foster better relationships between Gods and humans. 

Then there are two almost entirely inconsequential post-credits scenes, the first of which sees Waller’s cronies John Economos and Emilia Harcourt approach Billy about joining the Justice Society of America, before walking away after giving up on his juvenile antics. He makes an Avengers joke. 

The second sees us catch up with the villain from the first Shazam! film, Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong) and the worm Mister Mind, which adds literally nothing besides acknowledging that the pair still exist and that Mister Mind has been slow in hatching his plan because he’s a worm and it takes a long time for him to get around.