By the standards of the superhero genre, Shazam!‘s box office haul of $366 million was hardly a massive total, but the DCEU blockbuster was nowhere near as expensive as the majority of its contemporaries, with the budget being kept under $100 million. About as far away from the grim and gritty SnyderVerse aesthetic as you could possibly get, the movie was nothing short of an absolute blast.
Having built his reputation in the horror genre, David F. Sandberg made a surprisingly smooth transition to the light-hearted comic book caper, with Zachary Levi lighting up the screen in a hugely charismatic lead performance. Reviews were very enthusiastic across the board, too, and Shazam! remains the second highest-rated installment in Warner Bros.’ shared universe on Rotten Tomatoes with a 90% score, just behind Wonder Woman.
Sequel Fury of the Gods was first announced in April 2019, three days after the first outing hit theaters, but we won’t be seeing it until June 2023. Having sported a padded muscle suit under his costume before, though, star Zachary Levi is determined to get buffer than ever to reprise the title role, especially with Dwayne Johnson’s hulking Black Adam lurking just around the corner. And now, a new video has shown the actor back in the gym as pre-production continues to tick over, which you can see below.
Zachary Levi back in the gym for SHAZAM: Fury Of The Gods! pic.twitter.com/d9NqCvl9pB
— Shazam Updates (@ShazamNews) March 29, 2021
Plot details are virtually nonexistent at this stage, but we do know that there’s going to be a large helping of gravitas, with Helen Mirren recently joining the cast as villain Hespera, and Rachel Zegler also on board in an as yet unnamed but key supporting role. Shazam! Fury of the Gods is expected to start shooting long before the end of the year, so we can no doubt expect more casting announcements to arrive imminently.
