At this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, Warner Brothers and DC Films announced a metric ton of new movies to release over the next several years, including the much anticipated sequel to Wonder Woman and the alternate timeline story Flashpoint. But another announcement they made that flew somewhat under the radar was that Annabelle: Creation director David F. Sandberg will be helming the big screen version of Shazam! for a potential 2019 release date.
Although Shazam! isn’t currently all that popular in the comics, Captain Marvel (as the character was known for decades) was once so successful that he even outsold Superman. DC Comics was so threatened by the popularity of the character that they sued Captain Marvel publisher Fawcett Comics pretty much out of existence in the ’50s for “copying” Superman.
Ironically, after all that, DC Comics ended up buying the Shazam! family of characters and incorporated them into the DC Universe. The character has enough history that Warner Brothers is hoping that his mythology can make for a successful movie franchise.
But what, exactly, can we expect from a Shazam! movie? After all, the character is very whimsical, and the current DCEU is very much not. The comic book character is a 12-year-old boy named Billy Batson who becomes an adult superhero when he says a magic word, and who has an anthropomorphic tiger friend named Tawky Tawny. Are all of those wacky aspects of the comics going to make it into live-action?
Thanks to the folks at i09, we learned that director David F. Sandberg and screenwriter recently trolled fans online by releasing a “page from the script” of the film, which you can view below.
Damn @HenryGayden This latest draft is perfect! #Shazam! pic.twitter.com/GTskkWkeBu
— David F. Sandberg (@ponysmasher) August 6, 2017
The script page pokes fun at Shazam being unable to call himself Captain Marvel anymore, and his goofy animal friends like Tawky Tawny. But mostly, the script page reduces Superman and Shazam’s relationship to Looney Tunes style fisticuffs. It’s almost certainly a joke, but hey… wouldn’t it be hilarious if it was real? Actually, I think I kind of hope it is real (but it probably isn’t).
What do you want out of a Shazam! film? Should DC go full on ridiculous, or try to ground it in some type of reality? And do you want to see Shazam beat the snot out of Superman? Be sure to let us know down below in the comments.
Images: DC Comics
