Shazam is just a few days away from release and is steadily building up some buzz thanks to its increased marketing presence. With billboards going up in New York’s Times Square and other pormotional materials surfacing, the DC movie’s opening weekend projections are looking strong. It’s a while before any concrete talk about the sequel will surface but it looks like we may have just gotten our first bit of news about Shazam 2 earlier than expected.
In an interview with ComicBook.com, Shazam producer Peter Safran was asked about the possibility of returning for the sequel, to which he replied with a firm “Absolutely”. He in turn, posed the same question to director David Sandberg, who responded in affirmative. Here’s how the exchange went.
Peter Safran: It’s easy for me to say, ‘I’m on board’. What about you?
David Sandberg: Let’s do it.
Peter Safran: You heard it here!
Director David Sandberg also talked a bit about setting up the bad guy as a genuinely scary and frightening threat for kids in Shazam. Considering the movie’s target audience, it was vital for the kids to feel afraid and concerned about the threat to sell it convincingly, for which Sandberg called in his horror chops.
The goal was to set up the bad guys as a real threat. So, when the kids are threatened, you believe it like they could actually get hurt or even die. I think that’s really important in a movie to really set up the stakes and stay true to that.
Shazam hits theaters on April 5, 2019. It stars Zachary Levi as an adult Shazam, with Asher Angel playing his child counterpart Billy Batson along with Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy Freeman, Mark Strong as Dr. Thaddeus Sivana and Djimon Honsou as the wizard Shazam.