‘Shazam!’ Is The Magic Word For The DCEU

There is no doubt that the DCEU has faced much criticism from film critics and fanboys over the past few years.  While Wonder Woman and Aquaman have received amazing praise from viewers and brought in a lot of money for Warner Bros, other films such as: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Man of Steel took a beating from critics yet drew very well at the box office; and then we had Justice League.

Now Warner Bros and DC Entertainment have called upon the powers of the old gods and yelled their new magic word…

SHAZAM!

And with that a new hero has emerged and a new take on superhero movies comes to us on April 5th as the DCEU brings Shazam! to theaters.

Now to answer the big question, “Is Shazam! set in the DC Films Universe?” The answer is, yes.  Shazam! takes place inside the shared cinematic universe that currently houses Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Flash, The Green Lantern Corps and all of the bad guys that come with them.

Shazam! star, Zachary Levi (yes, Captain Marvel himself) recently shed some light on this major question:

“We are definitely within the DCEU world, I think since the Man of Steel, all of that has really happened in our world.  All of that stuff, theoretically, we could have been watching on the news as it was going down.”

When asked what comic influences inspired this film, director David F Sandberg responded:

“I wanted to incorporate a little bit of everything, not just in New 52, but the older stuff as well.  The suit is one part of that where it’s like, ‘Yeah, I want the shorter cape of like the Golden Age comics’, but then, ‘Let’s try the hood from the New 52.’ And little things like that, and trying to balance it.  So we have things and references from the old comics, but a lot of the story takes inspiration from the New 52”

Mark Strong who plays the films main villain, Dr. Sivana, had this to say about playing the iconic DC super villain:

“Well as you all know this is the New 52 version in which he’s much more robust and much more powerful,”  Strong said. “He is a proper super villain.  He gets to fly, he can create electric fields in his hands and fire electricity.”

Shazam! will no doubt be lighter story with more humor but that needs to be expected in a story surrounding a 14-year-old boy who gets amazing superpowers from a wizard and channels them by yelling a magic word but don’t be surprised when some of that humor disappears with some serious life lessons and amazing fights between Shazam and the antagonists in this film.

There is no doubt that Shazam! is going to be an amazing film.