Zachary Levi has never felt better in his life. As Shazam! Fury of the Kings releases in cinemas across the Middle East this weekend, the titular star (don’t call him Captain Marvel) could not be prouder of the film they made–or more hopeful for his own future within broader DC cinematic future, even as a new direction has been announced by the new co-chair of DC Studios, James Gunn.
That future, of course, should be anything but a sure thing. After all, the world that Shazam once fit into, the DCEU, has been mostly done away with as Gunn prepares to take things in a near-complete different direction, starting with his own Superman film he will write and direct that will set the tone for a brave new future.
There are, of course, exceptions–particularly the pieces that Gunn and co-chair Peter Safran had the most direct connection to, including the characters established by The Suicide Squad. But as Shazam opens without a clear direction in place for the future, it’s hard to know exactly where the character and his family may pop up next.
Levi, however, could not be more confident. After all, he could not be prouder of the film that he made with the team, a pure superhero film that has the heart of a family fantasy film, full of big emotional moments and awe-inspiring action set pieces, not to mention stand-out performances from Rachel Zeigler, Lucy Liu, and Dame Helen Mirren.
Ahead of the release, we caught up with Levi to talk about the James Gunn and Peter Safran-led DCU future, why he loves this film so much, and his own journey (which we’ve written about here).
Read the full conversation below.
Zachary Levi on Shazam! Fury of the Kings
Listen, I know I’m biased, but I’m a pretty honest person when it comes to things I’ve done or my opinion on things. I think we made a pretty darn good movie the first time, which is why we get to make a second one. And objectively, the second one is a better movie. I feel very blessed that we kind of—at least from our perspective, we’ll see what the box office says—but from our from our perspective, we’ve outdone ourselves from the first one.
One of the things I hate about sequels, whether it sequels to movies, or a second season of a show, or a sequel to a video game, or whatever, is that more often than not the people behind it, think, ‘oh, we got this really successful thing. And now we got to make it bigger.
We’ve got to make it broader and we’ve got to make twice as much everything’ and then you go well, but now you’ve lost the heart of what the thing was, you lost what was special about the thing. And what’s special about our thing is that within the canon of the universe or multiverse of comic characters specifically within DC, Shazam is a franchise full of heart and humor and charm, and we get to own that even better in the second one.
What are the things you think it does better?
Well, I mean, we had almost twice the budget. The budget on the first one was $80 to $100 million, which is a lot of money. But for a superhero movie, it’s bargain deal prices. Big superhero movies have a lot of special effectsif you can afford them and all that jazz. On this we had about $150 million. So, you know, we didn’t quite double it, but it’s significantly more money to then put into a lot more stuff—big set pieces, big action sequences, lots more CG. Lots more practical effects, with more money. You can close down more streets in a city and then fill it with extras and do something big and bold. That was a huge part of it.
I think another part of it was, you have all of us actors, David as a director, and Henry as a writer, and Pete as a produce—we all know this world now a bit better. We’re not finding our footing, the footing was already found, and now we’re just running with it. From a creative standpoint, we already had great momentum. And then from a financial standpoint, we get to back that momentum and that creativity. The that I get to play a kid still, a grown ass man to play a teenager is so fun. It’s just such a fun role to play.
God willing you get to do more, but since this movie was made, plans have changed. James Gunn and Peter Safran, your producer, have since taken the reigns of the DC cinematic world ahead of release. Have you discussed how Shazam might fit into that future with them?
The whole thing is so fascinating. Before they announced it, I didn’t know any of this was brewing. I knew that Mr. Zaslav, as with any merger or acquisition, would come in and try and figure out how to streamline business. I understand all that. I was disappointed to lose Walter Hamada. I think he’s a wonderful guy and a very talented guy. And I think he really cared deeply about making a great DC Universe. But I understand that changes need to happen. And I am not worried about Walter, he’s going to end up on his feet somewhere wonderful. And we’re going to work together on other stuff.
But I will say that when I did finally find out what was going on, with Peter Safran, my producer, and James Gunn, my friend that I’ve known through lots of other friends through many years, all of a sudden, that these guys were now the two co-heads of our universe, I had a big, big, big Cheshire Cat grin on my face.
It couldn’t be more fortuitous, at least for me, and maybe Jason Momoa given that Peter is our producer, as he produces Aquaman and he produces Shazam, It’s the homies, you can’t help that but feel a bit of extra love. But also Aquaman has performed very, very well for them. Our performance was not billion dollar Aquaman level, but we performed well, particularly given our budget and timing and the lower levels of awareness of the character before release I think that Peter is proud of what he’s accomplished as a producer and is stoked that he gets to continue to keep supporting, as it turns out, the IP that he’s already been responsible for bringing into the world. But he’s a great businessman and diplomat, and a really good balance and counterpart to James, who is the creative, the world builder.
He’s the guy who has done it multiple times already. And not just in his own films, like Slither and things like that, that are his own worlds that he’s built, but then beyond that, being given some building blocks of Guardians and building blocks of the Suicide Squad, and then really going in crafting something magical in both of those Ips—and by the way, and not super well known IPs. The only thing anybody knew about Suicide Squad prior to James’s film was the Suicide Squad movie right before that. Guardians was this random title out in the outskirts of Marvel. For James to come in and take that and make it one of their most successful franchises, and do three massive movies and a Christmas special—these are the types of people that you want to have in charge.
Whether I knew them or not, I was excited about the prospect of having these guys come in and sharing that load, too. That’s a really weird position that you need to be in as the head of something like a DC Studios, because when one person has to do it, they’re having to juggle both, all of his creative world building stuff, and then also all of this diplomacy and business stuff. And that’s why I think James and Peter have been working together forever. I mean, Peter is James’s manager. They’re co-producers. They do everything, and they’ve been doing it for 20 years, or however long. There’s a lot of shorthand in that.
There’s a lot of really understanding each other. Listen, again, I’m highly biased. I can’t hide that. But I am a very honest person. If I didn’t think this is a good move. I’d just be like, yeah, great. And we move on to the next question. But I really do think that it’s inspired, and I feel good about what Shazam’s future is within the DCU partly because of my relationships with them, but more because I think we have a really good franchise. Even if it were other people, I think that they would still see the value in what it is we’re bringing to DC and Warner Brothers and to Warner Brothers Discovery as a parent company.
Shazam! Fury of the Kings is now in cinemas across the Middle East. Get tickets here.