‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ Review: Zachary Levi Is Back in a Sequel with More Monsters and Less Joy

Shazam! Fury Of The Gods after a string of negative reviews.As it stands, the sequel to Shazam! currently has a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 51 per cent and in a two-star review, NME wrote: “Swapping comedy for quips and action for messiness, the overstuffed, under-lit sequel only ever seems accidentally enjoyable.“Fury Of The Gods gets a big, silly ending which is occasionally fun, but there’s a cheap and clumsy feel to everything – a superhero sequel made in the same vague shape as a dozen others.“In a new Instagram post, Levi (who plays the grown-up Billy Batson/Shazam in the film) has defended the film.“It’s a throwback to all the movies that we knew and loved growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s,” said Levi after comparing it to The Goonies. “You’ll thoroughly enjoy it.”“It’s disappointing to not be doing as well as I think we deserve to be, because I think we made a really great movie.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic The headline of this column is doubtlessly unfair. I’m judging a movie before I’ve seen it, before it has even been made. Given the vast volume of junky indifferent product that now slides through the megaplex, and the streaming ocean, on a weekly basis, why not settle in for an ambitious remake of “Vertigo,” Alfred Hitchcock’s romantically kinky and voluptuous dream thriller of 1958? At least it’s not “Texas Chainsaw XVIII” or another “Minions” movie. At least it will be interesting (right?). Robert Downey Jr., who is in talks to produce and possibly star in a remake of “Vertigo” at Paramount (home of the original film), is a great actor. But once he became a box-office superstar, 15 years ago, with “Iron Man,” he got sucked into the escapist vortex of Marvel and “Sherlock Holmes” and duds like “Dolittle.” Downey, who is about to turn 58, needs to rediscover himself as an actor. Couldn’t he accomplish that by taking on the role of the obsessive detective that James Stewart, who was 49 when he starred in “Vertigo” (but looked 10 years older than Downey), fashioned into one of his own greatest performances?

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” hit theatres on March 17, resulting in a disappointing opening weekend with just $65 million at the worldwide box office — a 43 per cent drop from the first “Shazam” movie.

The headlines surrounding Zachary Levi and Dwayne Johnson continue, and now ET Canada is playing a part in the rumours swirling about the pair.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Almost a week after “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” opened in theaters and bombed at the box office, Zachary Levi took to Instagram to weigh in on a whole lot of drama surrounding the DC comic book tentpole. In a video, the actor confirmed that plans for the “Fury of the Gods” post-credits scene — in which Shazam is recruited to join the Justice Society — were “thwarted,” although he did not say by who. A report from The Wrap published after “Fury of the God’s” opening weekend claimed that Dwayne Johnson sabotaged the “Shazam” post-credits scene by blocking “Black Adam” characters Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell) and Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) from appearing in it. Johnson headlined “Black Adam” and aimed to start a new thread of the DC Universe built around his character facing off against Henry Cavill’s Superman. “Black Adam” also underperformed at the box office, and both Johnson and Cavill are not included in the new DC Universe being spearheaded by DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran.

At this point, it’s safe to call David F. Sandberg‘s “Shazam! Fury Of The Gods” a flop.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” seemingly confused a lot of moviegoers with its surprise cameo featuring the return of Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. The character appears as a deus ex machina toward the end of the film, as Wonder Woman arrives on the scene to resurrect Billy Batson/Shazam from death as she is the only person left with godly powers to do so. Some shaky VFX work led to rumors that Gadot’s face was put on another actor’s body using deepfake technology, but “Shazam” director David F. Sandberg says otherwise. “A certain cameo in ‘Shazam! Fury Of the Gods’ had to be shot in England, but I couldn’t go because of a visa issue so I directed remotely,” Sandberg wrote on Twitter while sharing a video of himself remotely directing Gadot’s cameo scene. “It wasn’t a deepfake as some believe.”

Dwayne Johnson blocked Black Adam stars from appearing in the post-credits scene of Shazam! Fury Of The Gods.Director David F. Sandberg previously revealed that members of Black Adam‘s Justice Society of America were originally slated to appear in Fury Of The Gods, but that the scene “fell apart three days before we were going to roll cameras,” forcing him to find different characters.On Tuesday (March 21), The Wrap reported that Johnson actively blocked the characters from appearing in the Shazam! sequel, and that he also denied Levi a cameo in Black Adam.In an Instagram story on Tuesday, Levi shared a post mentioning The Wrap’s report and seemingly confirmed it by adding: “The truth shall set you free.”Elsewhere, Levi recently agreed with a tweet suggesting Zack Snyder fans are “happy” that Fury Of The Gods failed at the box office.“There is no denying that at the moment there are many Snyder fans who are happy for the failure of your film and many of them wish that everything that is to come fails just for not continuing with the films of their director,” one fan wrote to Levi on Twitter.“This is also true,” Levi replied in a since deleted tweet.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic The drama of addiction and recovery, as it takes place in the movies, tends to come at us like a series of rituals. There’s the rule-by-rule, day-by-day protocol of 12-step programs (the meetings, the showing up, the sharing, the calls to sponsors); a lot of us may feel we know it well from movies, even if we’ve never personally undergone the experience. There are the deeply engraved patterns of addiction itself: the highs, the lows, the cravings, the exploitation of friends and family members, the descent to the bottom, the grasping for the drink or the pill or the fix (or the one that isn’t there) and, in some cases, the criminal behavior. The reaching out to save oneself is also a kind of ritual — one that some addicts would say God built into us.

The highs and lows Zachary Levi must be experiencing have to be exhausting. In a matter of months, he went from having a highly-anticipated sequel to a breakout superhero film with “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.” Then, it was revealed that his franchise has an unknown future thanks to DC Studios going with a soft reboot of the superhero universe.

Naman Ramachandran New York-based film and TV studio and streaming network FilmRise has acquired North American distribution rights to true-crime documentary feature film “The Thief Collector.” Directed by Emmy winner Allison Otto (“The Love Bugs”), the film follows one of the most audacious and puzzling art thefts of a generation. In 1985, Willem de Kooning’s seminal work, “Woman-Ochre,” was sliced from its frame and stolen off the walls of the University of Arizona Museum of Art, disappearing into the desert. Over 30 years later, in a remote town in New Mexico, the $160 million dollar painting was rediscovered in the unlikeliest of places – the home of an eccentric married couple, both schoolteachers, with a keen eye for great works but a very unconventional method of collecting them. The film features Glenn Howerton co-creator, director, writer and star of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

Shazam! Fury Of The Gods has failed at the box office.The DC sequel earned $30million (£24million) at the domestic box office in its opening weekend, which is well below the $53million (£44million) the original Shazam! opened with in 2019.Fury Of The Gods cost a reported $110million (£90million) to make and a further $100million (£80million) to market, so the film has recorded a huge loss overall.Levi, who stars as the titular hero in both films, made sure not to blame Snyder fans for the box office failure but acknowledged that many of them would be happy to see the film underperform after Warner Bros. dropped Snyder’s DC Universe.“There is no denying that at the moment there are many Snyder fans who are happy for the failure of your film and many of them wish that everything that is to come fails just for not continuing with the films of their director,” one fan wrote to Levi on Twitter.“This is also true,” Levi replied in a since deleted tweet.

Zachary Levi is commenting on the report that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson blocked his character Black Adam from appearing in an end credits scene for Shazam! Fury of the Gods.

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” hit theatres on March 17, resulting in a disappointing opening weekend with just $65 million at the worldwide box office — a 43 per cent drop from the first “Shazam” movie.

Zachary Levi, star of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, is opening up about the box office results of the DC film sequel that fell below the already low projections the studio had for the movie.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Zachary Levi is the latest member of the “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” family to weigh in on the film bombing at the box office. The DC tentpole earned just $30 million in its domestic box office debut, well below the $53 million the original “Shazam!” opened with in 2019 and a huge financial loss considering “Fury of the Gods” cost north of $110 million to make and another $100 million to market. Levi heads the franchise as the eponymous superhero. While Levi is not blaming Zack Snyder fans for “Fury of the Gods'” box office miss, he did acknowledge on Twitter after the film’s opening that many Snyder fans wanted the sequel to fail as a kind of revenge against Warner Bros. for dropping Snyder’s DC Universe. James Gunn and Peter Safran are now in charge of the DC Universe and are rebooting it with films such as “Superman: Legacy,” which will not feature Snyder’s Superman actor Henry Cavill.

Shazam! Fury Of The Gods.The DC sequel, which sees Zachary Levi return as the titular hero and also features Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu as villains, currently has a rotten critic score of 53 per cent on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. The film has, however, faired much better with audiences, with a current score of 87 per cent.Reacting to the ratings, Sandberg tweeted a thread on Monday (March 20), explaining that would be temporarily be leaving superhero films behind to instead focus on horror projects and other new ideas.“On Rotten Tomatoes I just got my lowest critic score and my highest audience score on the same film,” he tweeted alongside a shrugging emoji.“I wasn’t expecting a repeat of the first movie critically but I was still a little surprised because I think it’s a good film.

Shazam! Fury Of The Gods has been released – check it out below.Directed by David F. Samberg (Lights Out), the DC sequel sees Billy Batson (Asher Angel) and his foster siblings transform into superheroes once again to take on a new threat in the Daughters of Atlas.Zachary Levi returns as Billy’s super-powered alter-ego, Shazam.

In the super-sequel “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” mild-mannered teen Billy Batson (Asher Angel, who transforms into Zachary Levi when powered up) learns the importance of togetherness as he and his team of hero pals save Philadelphia from a triumvirate of titanettes (Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu, and Rachel Zegler). Paired for the first time, screenwriters Chris Morgan and Henry Gayden got their own lesson in the fine art of teamwork as they joined forces for a lighter spin on the capes-and-tights picture.

Shazam: Fury of the Gods might have debuted at No. 1 at the box office this weekend, but it fell short of expectations.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” currently playing in theaters. Zachary Levi returns as Billy Baston/Shazam in “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.” In the DC superhero sequel, a trio of vindictive sorceresses called the Daughters of Atlas — led by Helen Mirren as Hespera, Lucy Liu as Kalypso and Rachel Zegler as Anthea — want to avenge their father and take back the power of the gods they believe was stolen from Shazam and his crew. David F. Sandberg directs and, in true superhero style, peppers easter eggs throughout the film for the most eagle-eyed superhero fans.