Months after the sequel to Shazam failed to capture the original’s success, Zachary Levi reflects on the ordeal from earlier this year.
While the fallout may not have been as colossal as The Flash, Shazam: Fury of the Gods was one of the earlier titles this year that has been the subject of underperformance. This came at a surprise due to its predecessor being one of the more breakout hits of the DC Extended Universe. The ingredients were gathered to further the series after 2019’s Shazam as it had been announced that Dwayne Johnson was slated to star in Black Adam, which most had assumed would be the precursor to an eventual battle between the comic book rivals in a crossover film.
Cut to a few months later and the DCEU is about to be rebooted after a series of unfortunate events including Shazam: Fury of the Gods failing to replicate the first’s success and Black Adam following suit without even a hint of Billy Batson’s future meeting with the anti-hero. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Zachary Levi recently appeared on The FilmUp Podcast where he admits he’s still confused on the negative reviews from critics this time around.
“I don’t know what the future holds for it all because, unfortunately, the second movie was not as well received. The audience score is still quite good, but the critics score was very oddly and perplexingly low, and people were insanely unkind,” Levi stated. “I thought we made a, if not just as good, better version than the first movie.” He, then, elaborates, “I’ve been a part of things, and as much as I wish they were good, I know they’re OK. I know that they miss a lot. And I’m not saying Shazam! Fury of the Gods is some perfect, you know, Orson Welles-like masterpiece, but it’s a good darn movie.”
Levi also addressed that he feels the change in the nature of social media factored into the movie’s underperformance, “I think even just the world, from the first movie to the second movie, the world has shifted so much. Social media has shifted so much. Hate, online hate and haters and trolls, and factions and all that has just gotten more galvanized in its toxicity. I think there are people who genuinely, unfortunately, want to destroy certain projects because they don’t like them, or they don’t like me, or they don’t like other people involved in them or whatever.”
The actor doesn’t know where the franchise will go from here, but he holds out hope that it will find a second life, “I just hope that or believe that, you know, history will show. It will be one of those things that people will go back, people will watch Fury of the Gods on home streaming or on a plane or whatever, and it will be this movie that they heard so much shit about and then they will be like, ‘Well, wait a minute.’”