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He's run away from countless situations, largely to pursue the mother who apparently hasn't been able to find him. Jumping ahead to present-day Philadelphia, we find 14-year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel) to be a moderately troubled product of the foster care system. And with that, we've got an orphaned hero with a tragic backstory. More recently, a young boy named Billy goes to a winter carnival with his mother and gets separated.
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He fails and we've got our future villain. The first, set around Christmas 1974, finds a young boy being summoned from the backseat of a very uncomfortable car ride with his nasty father (John Glover) and older brother, to a cave where the last surviving wizard (Djimon Hounsou) offers him all the power in the world if he can prove to be pure of heart.
Shazam 2019 cast movie#
I'd love to tell you that all that time has given us a film for the ages, but the reality is that Shazam! is one of the most underwhelming and least significant films to come out of this ongoing superhero movie boom.
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This film, however, has been in development at New Line Cinema since the early 2000s, entering pre-production back in 2008. Since then, Shazam has been tapped for live-action and animated television but not extensively and never as its own popular franchise. The lawsuit led to the character being retired, but he was resurrected and renamed Shazam in 1972 when DC licensed the property. Fawcett Comics, the original publishers, were sued by DC in the early 1950s for copyright infringement over perceived similarities to Superman. The character of Shazam, heretofore unknown to many prospective moviegoers, was introduced all the way back in 1940 ironically under the name Captain Marvel.
Shazam 2019 cast how to#
While the studio picks up the pieces from the wreckage of Justice League and figures out how to continue to cultivate the universe - Wonder Woman and the billion dollar Aquaman suddenly seem like far sturdier cornerstones than longtime draws Batman and Superman - they also give us Shazam!, a standalone superhero movie with relatively modest expectations and no concrete connection to anything bigger. To keep pace, DC has had to turn to characters who aren't deeply ingrained in the public consciousness and haven't ever appeared on film before. DC had been giving us one or two films a year to Marvel's three, but as of now, DC has three 2020 releases scheduled compared to just two from Marvel.
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The DC Extended Universe has a long ways to go before catching up to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in box office receipts, critical acclaim, and, now, Academy Awards, but the Warner Bros.-based line has been making strides in one area: output quantity.
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