Shazam! Fury of the Gods

'Shazam! Fury of the Gods' is an American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Captain Marvel. Produced by New Line Cinema, DC Films, The Safran Company, and Mad Ghost Productions, and set for distribution by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is intended to be the sequel to Shazam! (2019) and the fourteenth film in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). It is directed by David F. Sandberg from a screenplay by Henry Gayden and Geoff Johns, and stars Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Djimon Hounsou, Rachel Zegler, Helen Mirren, and Lucy Liu. A sequel to Shazam! began development shortly after that film's release in April 2019, with Gayden returning as writer. Sandberg and Levi were also set to return by that December. The title and rest of the returning cast were confirmed in August 2020, with Zegler, Mirren, and Liu cast as the antagonists in early 2021. Filming began that May in Atlanta, Georgia and wrapped in August.

''Shazam! Fury of the Gods'' was released in the United States on December 2, 2022. It received worldwide critical acclaim from both audience and critics, and grossed over one billion and a half million dollars, more than ten times its budget. After the movie's huge success, a sequel was greenlighted to be released in 2024 with the cast and crew confirmed to return.

Plot
In this sequel, we follow the hero and his now superpowered foster family as they protect the world from the Three Faces of Evil, ancient enemies of the wizard Shazam who have been released from their magical prison after their enemies' death and plans to take over the Seven Magical Realms. The tale also concentrate around an old sword, the Sword of the Gods, as it was heavily stressed in the DC FanDome BTS teaser. The Sword of the Gods is a legendary item of ultimate power with the ability to turn any thought into reality. The most powerful weapon in the universe, the Sword was forged ages ago by the seven Wizards (including Shazam) channeling all the magic of the multiverse into it. The Sword was used by the Wizards to repel threats against reality itself such as Darkseid, Trigon and the Anti-Monitor (they won't be called by name but an animated flasback will show the story of the sword and the silhouettes of these villains being defeated using the sword). However, the Sword of the Gods' power proved so great that the Wizards hide it away. Now the Three Faces of Evil want to find it and they are convinced that the children are the key to it.

Some of the film's main events will include:


 * Billy and his family visiting and adventuring through some of the Seven Magical Realms that they are now tasked to protect which includes the Funlands, the Gamelands, the Wildlands, the Wozenderlands, the Dreamlands and the Darklands. The gates that lead to the Monsterlands will also be shown but the characters will not go through them as they have been sealed long ago by the Seven Wizards to prevent the terrible creatures that lies beyond them from storming the other worlds. The fragments of the mystical map that leads to the Sword of the Gods are hidden each in a different realm and Billy and his brothers must recover them before the witches do.
 * Billy Batson falling in love with his classmate the beautiful cheer captain Cissie Sommerly who shares his feelings. In order to impress her, Billy will enlist at the basketball school team.
 * Billy Batson adopting the official superhero name of Captain Marvel at the end of the film under suggestion of his fiancee Cissie.
 * Freddy Freeman will fall in love with one of the three witch sisters, the youngest of them, who initially disguised as a normal girl in order to deceive them but will end up falling in love with Freddy for real. In the end, she will betray her older sisters and side with the Marvel Family to be with Freddy. She took the alias of Sabina. She will also use her magic to heal Freddy's broken leg. When she tries to convince her sisters not to kill her friends, they will put a spell on her to bring her on their side again only for Freddy to reach out her heart and free her with a kiss. Still, during the final fight she will be forced to conjure the three-headed dragon spell, and only after the dragon's defeat by Captain Marvel she will finally be free.
 * A new character introduced in the movie is Beautia Sivana, the niece of Thaddeus Sivana from the previous movie. With the death of his father and grandfather (for which she doesn't appear upset at all), she inherited all the family money and she is using it to showcase her "superiority" to her classmate, especially our main characters. She is the perfect stereotype of a teen movie spoiled prom princess, very beautiful and very popular but also mean and completely self-centered. She's also very similar to Princess Morbucks from the Powerpuff Girls cartoon: always pretending others to admire her while showcasing her wealth and "superiority". She enjoys all the boys' attentions (especially the Breyer brothers who also serves as her de facto servants) though she treat them like crap. Ironically, she despise Billy and his brothers while admiring their superhero alter egos to the point that she dreams of becoming Captain Marvel's girlfriend. During the final battle of the movie, she will manage to be saved by the world's mightiest mortal and steal a kiss from him (with Billy having a mixed feeling about it). But in the last scene of the movie set at school, just before Billy's basketball match scene, she will finally get what she deserve when Sabina will use her magic to humiliate her in front of all the school causing her to panic and run away ashamed.
 * Captain Marvel will use his magic to bring his favorite tiger plush (the same one we saw in the previous movie) to life, transforming it into their animal companion and new friend and member of the family: Tawky Tawny!
 * The wizard Shazam will return as a spirit to train Captain Marvel and his siblings in the Rock of Eternity and guide them through the adventure (though he will only appear from time to time and can't help them to fight their enemies).
 * The Vásquez will find out about their children's superhero identities by the end of the movie.
 * In a scene, Billy goes to the school bathroom and sits on the toilet. He looks up in surprise when the door begins to rattle. A bunch of girls in cheerleading costume with pom-poms suddenly barge in. They look down at Billy and laugh as he struggles to pull up his trousers. Billy can see Cissie among the girls. Suddenly the room transform into an elevator. One of the girls pushes button #7. The elevator shoots up. Billy is astonished. The doors open and the girls surrounds Billy and rubs him with their pom-poms until his face is buried. Billy pushes himself forward until he realizes that the girls are gone and he is no longer at school but in a mysterious hall who is revealed to be the Temple of Atlas where he meets Hespera and Calypso for the first time. Billy immediatly transforms and the two witches introduce themselves to him and try to bring him to their side before they chain him to hold the sky just like the Titan Atlas once was. Thankfully, Billy will manage to escape his prison by summoning all his strenght to break the chains and push himself out of the trap not too later after the scene.
 * Among the many funny scenes of the movie, the characters will end up in the Dreamlands, the realm where the dreams and nightmares of mankind are created. To escape their enemies while temporarily powerless, Billy and his siblings will go through the nightmare zone where their nightmares becomes real. Freddy's worst nightmare is to be in school in his underwear thus causing the whole family to live a "Not Wearing Pants" Dream trope. It gets even funnier when the villains go through the zone to chase them and end up in their underwears too. Another funny scene will see the Three Faces of Evil summoning their monster army who marches toward Philadelphia only for the witches to point at the city being in the opposite direction. Also, in a scene that pay homage to Roald Dahl's Witches, the Three Faces of Evil will capture Freddy and turns him into a mouse. Before Billy and Darla manages to free him from the curse they will try various spells and formulas and each will transform Freddy into a different and bizzarre form (a freaky tentacled monster, a woman from the neck down and a 2D Tasmanian Devil) before finally returning him to normal.
 * Superman will appear in the movie, once again played by Henry Cavill, though wearing a different costume that looks much more like the one in the Rebirth comics as well as with much brighter colours like Captain Marvel's costume. In the first scene where he appears, Billy goes to a diner to meet with him in civilian identities. The two already know each other by this point, as the last scene of the previous movie shown that the two befriended at some point. Clark advises Billy to remain patient for the day his powers will be needed and give him some advice on how to balance the different aspects of his life. Clark's personality in the movie is a lot wiser, cooler and father-like than what was depicted in the Snyder movies, much more in line with the comics and the Superman & Lois show and he will serve as a mentor and father-like figure to Billy. The second scene in which Superman appears is when the Sword of the Gods-powered Three Faces of Evil unleash an army of monsters toward all of the planet, including Metropolis so Clark will have to change his clothes (in a scene that pays homage to the classic Superman's transformation) and face the monsters while hoping that Billy and his brothers will make it. Later, Superman will reach Philadelphia just in time to protect the children from the Three Faces of Evil's dragon form. However, not even him can stop the demonic juggernaut, though this won't stop Clark from standing firmly in front of the children, ready to die to defend them. Later, Billy will turn into Super Shazam and saves the day, with Superman congratulating him both for defeating the villains and for showing the wisdom of giving up the ultimate power.
 * The Three Faces of Evil will summon and commands an army of mythological monsters: harpies, dragons, manticores, cyclops and fauns.
 * Over the course of the film, Captain Marvel will become significantly more powerful and much more skilled with his superpowers. In fact, his punches will cause shockwaves and he will learn to move at immeasurable speed (during a flying training session he will casually end up from Earth to Vega and then flys back in a matter of seconds!). As mentioned before, he will even hold the weight of the infinite celestial sphere like Atlas did. Billy and his family will also learn to make a lot more magical tricks including telekinesis, teleportation, hypnotism, healing powers (after ending up in the Darklands, Captain Marvel was swiftly aging and turning into a corpse but after he came out of it his magic immediatly heals him back to normal; they will also be shown to be capable of healing wounded people) and magical transmutation (in revenge for what they did to him, Freddy transforms the defeated Hespera and Calypso into harmless little mices which they then proceeds to put into a cage in the Rock of Eternity). Plus Billy turns his tiger plush toy into Tawky Tawny.
 * Eventually the Sword of the Gods will be found and the Three Faces of Evil will harvest its power for themselves. Empowered by the Sword, they will start to reshape reality into Earth, transforming it back to the days of old, before the Marvel Family will start opposing them. During the fight, the witches will end up using their Sword of the Gods-derived power to transform into a giant three-headed dragon in order to deal with the Marvel Family. During the subsequent battle, the dragon will literally have the Sword dragged out of his body by Freddy when he'll let himself be swallowed in order to reach the Sword inside the dragon's body. After the Sword of the Gods fell out of the dragon, Billy will try to use it to stop the Three Faces of Evil, only for the sword to break and fall apart. The Three Faces of Evil will launch another spell, taking advantage of Billy and his brothers being exaustated from the fight, and they will make them revert to their children forms. Fortunately, at the very last moment, the Sword will conjure back before Billy, choosing him as its new bearer. Billy will then lift the sword above his head, point it to the sky and yells SHAZAM! and absorb the power of the gods to become Super Shazam, a more powerful version of Captain Marvel. Billy's proportions remain unchanged for the most part, and he still wears the same costume but various changes include his red suit becoming golden yellow in color, his irises turning blue and the hairs on his head pointing upwards. He also possesses a massive sparkling golden aura like a Dragon Ball Super Saiyan. Due to being infused with the Sword of the Gods' power, Super Shazam possesses what he has deemed himself to be god-like power; Tawky Tawny even described Super Shazam as the most powerful hero in the universe. He will then manage to easily defeat The Three Faces of Evil, freeing Sabina in the process and fixing Earth's reality back to normal. Following this, Billy releases the Sword of the Gods, having deemed himself not mature enough yet to wield that kind of power. After the fight, Sabina repaired the Sword of the Gods by gathering its shards and fusing them together. The Marvel Family then decided to form a new order to protect the Sword of the Gods from evil, in honor of the wizards who preceded them with Superman concluding that they will do a great job as the power couldn't be entrusted to better people.
 * In the last scene, Billy is playing basketball with his school team with his whole family cheering for him (including Clark). Billy end up making the winning dunk and the whole school praise him while Cissie runs to his side and kiss him. Billy asks if this mean that they're dating to which she reply "Sure!" before leading him to the crowd who then hails him as a hero for his victory, picks him up, and takes him away cheering while Billy also notice the Wizard happily smiling at his champion among the crowd.
 * But the very last scene of the movie will be Billy and his family, all in their superhero adult form, who plays together as a band in front of Philadelphia's crowd singing their own rendition of You Give Love A Bad Name. As the song keep going, the credits start in the same style as the previous movie with animated drawings featuring the Marvel Family meeting other DC characters including Superman and the Justice League.
 * A mid-credit scene shows Sivana and Mister Mind preparing themselves for the next movie visiting Beautia in the family mason.
 * A post-credit scene shows Wonder Woman approaching Philadelphia telling herself it's time to meet the new champion of the gods. This teases her appearence in the next movie Shazam: Gods & Monsters.

Cast

 * Zachary Levi as Captain Marvel: The champion of the wizard Shazam and the superhero alter-ego of teenager Billy Batson, who possesses "the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury".
 * Asher Angel as Billy Batson: A teenager and foster child who transforms into a superhero by saying "Shazam!".
 * Jack Dylan Grazer as Frederick "Freddy" Freeman: Billy's best friend and a fan of superheroes. Adam Brody plays the character's adult superhero form.
 * John Rhys-Davies as Tawky Tawny: once a tiger plush toy, Billy used his magical powers to turn it into a real tiger capable of talking and understanding human language in order for him to help Captain Marvel defend his siblings and other kids who were in danger. He will become the boys' guardian and eventually goes to live with their family (he can turns into a plush toy again at will in order to disguise himself from those who don't know their superhero identities). In addition to his already natural huge size as a tiger, he possesses the ability to grow himself even bigger as well as developing Smilodon-like fangs. Despite this, he is strictly a vegetarian. He is under no enchantment but his own in fact when the Three Faces Of Evil will try to turn him back to his original form they will fail because only Billy's magic work on him.
 * Djimon Hounsou as Shazam: An ancient wizard who gave Billy his powers after naming him as champion.
 * Rachel Zegler, Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu as The Three Faces Of Evil: A triumvirate of powerful witches/goddesses of the underworld who assumed various identities through the ages and countries including the Fates, the Weird Sisters etc. They are able to conjure together into a a gigantic, hideous and unfathomably strong three-headed demon dragon.
 * Allison Brennan as Cissie Sommerly: Billy Batson's classmate and love interest.
 * Henry Cavill as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman: a Kryptonian survivor with superpowers and a journalist for the Daily Planet based in Metropolis. He is the inspiration for Billy and his family, for whome he becomes a mentor. Cavill described Superman as he appears in Shazam! Fury of the Gods as much closer to the "true" Superman as depicted in the comics with a much more optimistic and lighthearted attitude.

Billy's foster family also includes Faithe Herman as Darla Dudley, Billy's good-natured younger foster sister with Meagan Good as her adult superhero form; Grace Fulton as Mary Bromfield, Billy's mature, academically-driven older foster sister (Fulton also portrays Mary's adult superhero form); Ian Chen as Eugene Choi, Billy's younger foster brother and an obsessive gamer with Ross Butler as his adult superhero form; Jovan Armand as Pedro Peña, Billy's older foster brother who doesn't talk much (he only has two lines in the movie), with D. J. Cotrona as his adult superhero form; Brittney Rentschler as Rosa Vásquez, the foster mother of Billy and his siblings; and Nathan Filion as Víctor Vásquez, Billy and his siblings' foster father (replacing Marta Milans and Cooper Andrews from the previous movie). Jim Cummings voiced the Chesire Cat who appears in the Wozenderlands as well as a rhino and a bear police officers of the Wildlands, and Freddy in his Tasmanian Devil form, while Corey Burton voiced the presenter of the Gamelands, the White Rabbit and the Caterpillar in the Wozenderlands, and Yurdd, the leader of a gang of crocodile criminals of the Wildlands. Jim Cummings and Corey Burton recorded their lines together, being long time colleagues and friends.

Trivia

 * In the italian dub of the movie, Tawky Tawny is voiced by Pietro Ubaldi, one of the most famous and active italian voice actors who also voiced Hector Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Taz the Tasmanian Devil of the Looney Tunes and Doraemon as well as many other roles. Ubaldi was suggested to the dubbing director by Maurizio Merluzzo, the italian voice actor of Zachary Levi/Captain Marvel.
 * Like the previous chapter, the movie will feature some pieces of beloved 80s music in its soundtrack: Princes of the Universe by the Queen, The Final Countdown by the Europe, I Was Made for Lovin' You by the Kiss, You Give Love A Bad Name by Bon Jovi and I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For by Bono Vox.