New Shazam 2 Set Photos Tease Massive Superhero Street Fight
Shazam! Fury of the Gods looks to deliver explosive action in the latest photos released from the set.
Once best known in superhero movie circles as a purveyor of Batman and Superman movies, Warner Bros. has found big success mining other DC comic book legends in recent years. One needs to look no further than 2018’s Aquaman, which made a little over $1 billion at the global box office, to see how things have changed. You no longer need to put Batman in your DC superhero movie to get audiences to the theaters (although that seems to be the strategy for the upcoming Flash movie, which is bringing back Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck as their respective versions of the Dark Knight).
Then there’s 2019’s Shazam, a more comedic take on the DC universe starring comedian Zachary Levi as Billy Batson, a boy who is transformed into a powerful adult superhero by a wizard. It’s the stuff of fairy tales but told in a tongue-in-cheek way, as Levi goes through the usual superhero origin story antics with relish. The movie’s irreverent superhero humor has made it one of the most well-received superhero movies of the DCEU era, which at the time had just been absolutely clobbered with the release of Joss Whedon’s version of Justice League. The film also made $336 million worldwide off of a lean (for a superhero blockbuster) $62 million budget. It should come as no surprise, then, that Shazam is getting a sequel.
Levi is back as the titular hero in Shazam! Fury of the Gods, with much of the rest of the cast returning for part two, although we learned Mark Strong won’t be back as Dr. Sivana this time around. There are some new additions too, including Helen Mirren, Rachel Zegler, and Lucy Liu. ’90s comedy icon Sinbad is set to cameo, too!
The cast additions aren’t all that’s new about Shazam! Fury of the Gods, though. As revealed by recent set photos, the superhero is also donning a new suit that seriously counteracts the cartoonish puffiness of the first movie’s costume. The lightning bolt emblem has also been tweaked, with darker hues of crimson on the sides of the suit to break up all the bright red.
But while the last batch of set photos showed off the costume in all of its shiny and untarnished glory, a new helping of pictures leaked from the production reveal that the suit won’t stay untarnished for long. Below, you can see the results of a big fight, including some serious scorching on one side of Levi’s new threads.
It’s clear that some kind of big fight has broken out in the streets of Philadelphia (although this movie is actually filming in Atlanta) and Shazam looks the worse for wear. We of course can’t see the villain at the other end of the battle but we have to assume it’s someone strong enough to seriously damage the physical embodiment of magic itself.
Could this possibly be photos of a fight with Mirren’s Hespera and/or Liu’s Kalypso? Judging from the title of the movie, the daughters of Atlas could very well be the gods who are pissed at Shazam. But coming after his new suit seems a bit much!
Shazam! Fury of the Gods opens in theaters on June 2, 2023.
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John Saavedra is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Den of Geek. He lives in New York City with his two cats.