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 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 $1 billion. After the movie's huge success, a sequel was greenlighted to be released in 2025 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 billion-year old prison after their enemies' death and plans to take over the Seven Magical Realms. 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.
 * 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 Sabrina. 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.
 * The characters will meet Tawky Tawny, the Wizard Shazam's former assistant, who will become one of their closest allies.
 * 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.
 * In a flashback, we shall see the Seven Wizards (including a younger version of Shazam) defeating the Three Faces of Evil and their allies (among the many fans shall recognize Captain Marvel's villains Mister Atom, King Kull, Herkimer, Jeepers as well as the fairy tale villains the Wicked Witch of the West and the Red Queen astride the Jabberwocky).
 * The Three Faces of Evil will summon and commands an army of mythological monsters: cyclops, minotaurs, harpies, chimeras, cerberus 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!). In the final battle, the Three Faces of Evil dragons' heads will unite their power to create a devastating energy attack similar to a Tailed Beast Ball that was said to be powerful enough to destroy the entire planet. However, Captain Marvel resists and absorbs the attack's massive energy and converts it into a powerful thunderbolt, which he then launches at the dragon, finally defeating and incapacitating him. 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).
 * In the last scene, Billy is playing basketball with his school team with his whole family (including Tawky Tawny) cheering for him. 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.

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: an humanoid tiger and inhabitant of the Wildlands who has long been working for the Wizard Shazam and has waited a long time for the coming of the new champions of magic. He will become the boys' guardian and eventually goes to live with their family. While he is normally humanoid, he has the ability to turn into a gigantic four-legged tiger with Smilodon-like fangs. Despite this, he is strictly a vegetarian and his favorite meal is spinach puffs which he enjoys cooking. John Rhys-Davies provides the character's voice and facial motion capture while 7'4" tall stuntman Roger Morrisey portrays the character on set wearing a mo-cap suit.
 * 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.

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). Corey Burton, Kevin Sorbo and Jim Cummings guest stars as the voices of respectively Zeus, Hercules and Solomon, three of the gods that empowers the Marvel Family, who will appear in Billy Batson's mind where they restore his powers. Jim Cummings also 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.