DC fans have a lot of questions about how, when, and where the Shazam movies fall into the larger DC universe… particularly because the new regime of James Gunn and Peter Safran plan to soft reboot the world and start building out movies that they are excited about. But in the first Shazam, there were plenty of references to the ongoing heroes of the DC universe. Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer) has an authentic Batarang that belongs to Ben Affleck’s Batman. Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and The Flash all get name dropped in trailers for Shazam: Fury of the Gods. And, of course, Superman (though not necessarily Henry Cavill) appears in this infamous closing shot from the original movie. Boy, did this ever start a conversation in the DC fandom.
This is all to say that Shazam director David Sandberg has never shied away from telling his audiences that the other DC heroes are around in his interpretation of the world. And as he told the ReelBlend podcast in an interview leading up to the release of Shazam: Fury of the Gods, he pitched a scene – half in jest – that would have included Shazam and Batman trying to break through the barrier that The Daughters of Atlas place over the city of Philadelphia. You see the barrier in the trailer. It ends up looking like this:
And then, it looked like this:
So Shazam: Fury of the Gods director David Sandberg told the ReelBlend hosts that he imagined a scene where Superman and Batman might come by to help the city. As he explained:
I (thought) we could have a scene of just outside the dome, where you see like, ‘Oh, Superman, maybe he's trying to get in there.’ Even if you see it on the news report or something from far away. But if it wasn't totally serious because it also opens up a whole can of worms. Like, where are they? Where did they go? (laughs) They're like, ‘Yeah, we can't do this. Let's go back to the Bat Cave or something.
When pressed to see if he went so far as to consider possibly using either Henry Cavill or Ben Affleck in his sequel, Sandberg quickly clarified that the idea never really graduated past its initial stage, saying:
No, it wasn't totally serious. And I think, if anything, it probably would've been just like on a news report, and you just see a tiny figure.
Which still would have been a cool way to show that yes, the other DC heroes can and do show up when there’s a threat being leveled at a key U.S. city like Philadelphia, where the Shazam family lives. We know that they are out there. It’s one of a handful of things that we do know about Shazam: Fury of the Gods before the movie opens this weekend. The sequel’s almost here. Grab your tickets now.
