{"id":207685,"date":"2019-03-30T02:28:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T06:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=207685"},"modified":"2019-03-30T02:28:30","modified_gmt":"2019-03-30T06:28:30","slug":"nodding-to-big-shazam-brings-the-superhero-down-a-size","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/03\/30\/nodding-to-big-shazam-brings-the-superhero-down-a-size\/","title":{"rendered":"Nodding to ‘Big,’ ‘Shazam!’ brings the superhero down a size"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: Meet DC\u2019s next hero ⚡@ZacharyLevi has just arrived at the #SHAZAM! World Premiere! (Photo<\/a>: @shazammovie\/Instagram<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK \u2013 \u201cShazam!\u201d is one of those movies with a perfect elevator pitch.<\/p>\n

Everywhere along its path to production, the same phrase guided its makers: \u201c’Big’ meets ‘Superman.\u201d’ As a tale about a 14-year-old boy who finds that he can transform into a powerful adult superhero version of himself with a simple command (\u201cShazam!\u201d), Penny Marshall’s classic 1988 comedy was an obvious touchstone for both its body-changing plot and its sweet sense of humour. If you didn’t sense the connection immediately in \u201cShazam!\u201d you will by the time a giant floor piano makes a cameo.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the beautiful things about this movie is you can pitch it in three words,\u201d says Zachary Levi, who stars as the supersized version of Billy Batson, played by Asher Angel as a kid.<\/p>\n

\u201cShazam!,\u201d which opens April 5, is the latest superhero movie to look further afield than comic book mythology for inspiration. Just as the gritty Wolverine thriller \u201cLogan\u201d drew from Westerns like \u201cShane,\u201d and \u201cBlack Panther\u201d was built as a Bond-like spy movie, the PG-13-rated \u201cShazam!\u201d has its DNA rooted in 1980s adventure-comedies, especially the Amblin Entertainment variety like \u201cGoonies\u201d and \u201cGremlins.\u201d<\/p>\n

The superhero is, increasingly, a Trojan Horse in spandex.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are understanding that you can tell a lot of different types of stories under the superhero banner,\u201d says \u201cShazam!\u201d producer Peter Safran, who also produced \u201cAquaman\u201d and who manages \u201cGuardians of the Galaxy\u201d director James Gunn. \u201cThey don’t all have to be world-ending, epic spectacles. You can tell great family stories. It can be a heist movie. It can be a horror movie, which I believe something like (‘Aquaman’ spinoff) ‘The Trench’ could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

By going small, the happily quirky \u201cShazam!\u201d (made for a relatively modest $100 million) is poised to be one the biggest successes in Warner Bros.’ DC Comics films. This decade, the only DC release with equal acclaim (\u201cShazam!\u201d is 93 per cent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) is 2017’s \u201cWonder Woman\u201d \u2013 and it’s not like the much-derided, much bulkier, much more expensive \u201cJustice League\u201d or \u201cSuicide Squad\u201d are even close.<\/p>\n

Box-office expectations have been ratcheted up. At the kid-friendly caper’s Hollywood premiere Thursday, Warner Bros. erected a Ferris wheel as a nod to both the movie’s carnival climax and fun-loving spirit.<\/p>\n

For the makers of \u201cShazam!\u201d the film has a kind of elemental superhero appeal based on the dream of becoming a superhero. Where other comic-book movies are otherworldly, \u201cShazam!\u201d and its hero are gleefully goofy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel bad for a lot of other actors who end up being superheroes,\u201d says Levi, whose breakthrough series, the spy comedy \u201cChuck,\u201d had some of the same flavour. \u201cMost other superheroes are cool and collected and brooding. They’re saving the world. Billy Batson is one of very few who gets to be very stoked. It’s not like a responsibility; it’s crazy cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ironic thing is that \u201cShazam!\u201d dates back to the early days of comics. It was created in 1939, a year after Superman, and very much conceived as a knockoff of the Man of Steel. Then, the hero was called Captain\u00a0Marvel\u00a0(nickname: the Big Red Cheese) and at times, he even outsold Superman in the 1940s. A 1941 black-and-white Captain\u00a0Marvel\u00a0serial was one of the very first comic book adaptions.<\/p>\n

But by the early ’50s, a copyright infringement lawsuit from DC Comics finally caught up to Captain\u00a0Marvel’s publisher, Fawcett Comics, shutting the character down. A strange afterlife followed. In 1967,\u00a0Marvel’s own Captain\u00a0Marvel\u00a0\u2013 same name, different hero \u2013 debuted. By 1972, the original Captain\u00a0Marvel\u00a0was reintroduced as Shazam.<\/p>\n

It’s a head-spinning twist of fate that all these decades later, both Captain Marvels are arriving in theatres almost simultaneously.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor them to come out basically in the same month is insane,\u201d says Safran. \u201cWe never really worried about it because it’s such a different type of movie. It’s such a different tone of movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

The big-screen debut of \u201cShazam!\u201d took so long not just because of legal tangles but because of the film’s unique tone. Soon after development at New Line first began in the 2000s, dark and brooding were in, thanks largely to \u201cThe Dark Knight.\u201d A number of writers took a crack at it in, including William Goldman (\u201cAll the President’s Men\u201d), in a string of stalled iterations.<\/p>\n

But as the possibilities for superhero films expanded, led by\u00a0Marvel’s \u201cGuardians,\u201d \u201cShazam!\u201d found its way through just as DC’s Superman and Batman revivals were sputtering. Initially, plans centred on a combo of Shazam and supervillain Black Adam, with Dwayne Johnson signed up as Black Adam. That character is expected to instead get his own movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no mandate to try to tie Shazam into the larger DC universe or do anything with Black Adam,\u201d says Safran. \u201cIt was just: This guy deserves the real estate to go tell a stand-alone origin story.\u201d<\/p>\n

An unlikely team assembled around Henry Gayden’s screenplay. Swedish filmmaker David F. Sandberg, who helmed Warner Bros.’ lucrative \u201cConjuring\u201d prequel, \u201cAnnabelle: Creation,\u201d came aboard to direct. And it took a long time \u2013 Sandberg says more than 100 auditions \u2013 for them to find their Shazam.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was an unknown to me. I had never seen ‘Chuck,\u201d’ says Sandberg of Levi. \u201cIt was a long process of doing lots and lots of auditions with very different people to try to find the right person. That was our stipulation: You have to audition. We have to make sure you can play a child, which is something most adults never do. It’s not like you have references in other movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old Levi (\u201cTangled,\u201d \u201cThe Marvelous Mrs. Maisel\u201d) initially turned down the audition, skeptical anything would come of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked my agent, ‘Aren’t they looking for huge jacked dudes or at very least very famous ones?\u201d’ says Levi. \u201cI was like: This feels like I’m going to be wasting everybody’s time.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Levi later sent in an audition tape from his phone for another part. That night, Sandberg and Safran called him to say he was right for Shazam. \u201cZach is basically a big kid,\u201d says Sandberg. \u201cHe has an excitement that kids have about everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was flabbergasted,\u201d says Levi. \u201cI’ve always been a bit of a Peter Pan-syndromed person. I hope in the best of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within a week, he was cast, and Levi, a lifelong Tom Hanks fan, found himself realizing a fantasy he never expected to fulfil.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always wanted to do something like ‘Big’ but you don’t want to remake something that’s never been touched,\u201d says Levi. \u201cSo when would I ever do ‘Big’?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 \u201cShazam!\u201d is one of those movies with a perfect elevator pitch. Everywhere along its path to production, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","mauthors-jake-coyle","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207689,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207685\/revisions\/207689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}