With “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” out in cinemas, director David F. Sandberg is moving on to bigger and brighter things. The Swedish helmer has now gone on the record with THR to talk about various aspects of the recent superhero sequel.
Chief among the discussion is the links to other DC properties seen (and not seen) in the film. The biggest is Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman cameo which Sandberg reveals he directed remotely from home.
Sandberg was well aware of the disappointment felt by many who watched the first film only to see a Superman cameo that they couldn’t get Henry Cavill for – so they filmed Superman from below the neck.
Because of that, Sandberg hoped but was prepared for disappointment with this sequel:
“[Wonder Woman] was always supposed to be in [Shazam! Fury of the Gods], but I didn’t believe it was going to happen because of what happened on the first movie where we had to do a headless Superman cameo. I thought that was going to happen here, too.
But then it actually did happen, which was great, because then we could poke fun at the headless cameo of the first movie, with the Wizard [Djimon Hounsou] dream sequence. But we never could have done that if we didn’t actually have Gal at the end because people would’ve been furious.”
Sandberg also discussed the mid-credit scene which includes Emilia Harcout (Jennifer Holland) and John Economos (Steve Agee) from “Peacemaker” as opposed to Justice Society characters from “Black Adam”. Sandberg confirms Holland and Agee were last-minute replacements:
“There were supposed to be characters from [Black Adam’s] Justice Society, but that fell apart three days before we were going to roll cameras. I was really upset because we had built that abandoned gas station set, and we could only shoot that scene in that little piece of forest…
So, Peter Safran, who produced this movie and Peacemaker, made some calls, and thankfully, Jen Holland and Steve Agee were able to come by on very short notice. I mean, the scene makes a little less sense with them. It’s like, “Why are they recruiting for Justice Society?” but you can kind of see it as they’re working for Amanda Waller [Viola Davis].”
Asked if he was disappointed he didn’t get to explore Shazam and Black Adam’s relationship on screen, he says:
“No, not really. The thing about Black Adam is that he has the same powers as Shazam, and we did that in the first movie where we gave Sivana [Mark Strong] the same power. So I don’t think the fight itself would’ve been super interesting, but I do think it’s a missed opportunity. What makes the most sense is to have them fight each other, so it’s money left on the table. But it’s how it is.”
Sandberg will soon reunite with James Wan for a horror project he has in development.
