How do you research a character you are not that familiar to? In David F. Sandberg’s case, the director of the upcoming Shazam film went straight to the source. In an interview while promoting his upcoming movie Annabelle: Creation, Sandberg admits that he’s not familiar with the character and is acquainting himself with the superhero by reading old comics which feature Captain Marvel/Shazam, also reading the ones Geoff Johns wrote:
“It wasn’t a character I grew up with. It was published in Sweden, where I’m from, in the ’70s, so it’s a little before my time. So I only knew him from the Justice League, It’s not until now that I’m getting into the comics and reading a lot of the old ones, the Geoff Johns ones, ‘The Power of Shazam,’ and looking at a bunch of animation. So I’m really getting to know the character.”
Also, Sandberg explains that taking on Shazam is new ground for him considering that this character has a lighter tone and his work background usually revolves around the horror genre:
“This will be very different than what I’ve done in the feature space, because it’s not a horror movie and it’s a much lighter tone. But it’s something that I look forward to trying out, even though I plan to return to horror in some fashion. My background, back in Sweden, before I started doing horror shorts, I was doing animated comedy shorts. It’s not totally alien to me to have more of a comedy approach. I look forward to taking that on in a feature.”
It has been confirmed last month that Shazam will begin their production early next year and David F. Sandberg confirmed to be the director at Comic-Con. Also, with the confirmation of the director, New Line Cinema, Warner Bros.’ sister company, will be making the movie. In addition, it was confirmed earlier that The Rock will not be part of this specific project. Shazam will be part of Warner Bros.’ DC Extended Universe, as confirmed when asked by a fan on Twitter if Shazam will be part of the DCEU and Sandberg himself confirmed that, yes, it is part of the DCEU.
