"SHAZAM! Fury of the Gods" first trailer!

  After the positive reviews and reception of the first SHAZAM! movie (not stellar, but positive), we now have the sequel. We still don't see Black Adam in it (Dwayne Johnson is such a big star and the character is so popular in the comics that they decided to give them a stand-alone origin picture before putting him in the same movie with the SHAZAM! family), but instead we have a couple of highly regarded actresses (Hellen Mirren and Lucy Liu) playing ancient gods, a theme of "family" so self-aware that the Fast And Furious movie franchise is even mentioned in the first trailer (with a funny pay-off), the return of the Old Wizard, but in apparently a more "down-to-earth" role, some powerful magic people who might be allies or villains, a dragon, meta-recognition of the Shazam-Flash costume similarities (thanks, Carmine Infantino), super-feats, and some self-doubt and insecurity from the titular hero.

It looks fun, it looks funny, and it could be very exciting. It is always hard to tell with trailers. It could go too far into the comedy, but the original Captain Marvel was never meant to be all dead serious and stuff. The action clips are very short, so we can;t tell how much there will actually be. The progression from insecure hero to fighting evil with the family is not presented at all, so we can only hope that it is a convincing Campbellian hero's journey.

But let's not forget that this is only the first trailer, designed to get the "sizzle" out. We will have to wait for the movie to get the steak.

There is no hint of Dr. Sivana or Mr. Mind (the work from the post-credit scene from the first movie), no emphasis on the tiger motif that was all over the first film (though the cabochons holding his cape still have the tiger face on them), and we only see one shot of the foster parents, but at least we do see all the kids both in and out of their heroic personas.

As a fan and scholar of all characters who have been, are, or will be named Captain Marvel, I am looking forward to this movie and hoping that I am entertained as much as I was by the first one. Though I don't feel the jump=out-of-my-seat thrill I would have liked, there is enough potential between the lines here for me to be positive about it.

IF I have time, I will post up some of the myriad of "reaction videos" that are already out there.

CLICK HERE to watch SHAZAM! from AmazonPrime!

CLICK HERE to watch SHAZAM! with the bonus features from AmazonPrime!

SHAZAM! MOVIE REVIEW VIDEO! (extempore, no spoilers)

Here is my on-the-spot review of the movie SHAZAM! I will probably write something more thorough with spoilers later.

We will finish up our Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) movie review first.

TWO NEW TRAILERS! ONE FOR SHAZAM! ONE FOR CAPTAIN MARVEL!

So MovieAccessTrailers seems to like to put together videos of "coming attractions," book-ended by recent trailers. This is great because it gives us the opportunity to see a whole bunch of footage of the movies in one convenient video. So without further ado, here is the one for DC's upcoming "SHAZAM!" movie:

In it we see Sivana shooting lightning from his fingers, money flying out of an ATM into the hands of the hero and Freddy Freeman, a new member of the "Shazam Kids," and repeated viewings of what is possibly the coolest shot in any Superhero movie, Billy Batson jumping off a building, saying the word, and, in a flash of lightning, transforming into the hero.

Here is the one for Marvel's "Captain Marvel" movie:

The heading is a bit misleading. We don't see any Minerva-Ronan fight, What we do get is Annette Benning as a maternal figure, a brief look at Korath with laser wings, more Brie Larsen/Samuel L. Jackson banter, a Jude Law/Brie Larsen fight/training sequence, some air force buddy-banter between Lashana Lynch (Monica Rambeau's mom) and Brie Larsen, and footage of Brie Larsen jumping on a train and crashing a plane.

I am going to update this post with some analysis later.

SHAZAM! trailer released at San Diego Comic Con! BREAKING~!

HERE IT IS! Of the two movies based on Captain MArvel properties scheduled to come out next year, DC is the first one with an actual trailer!

This is not completely surprising, being as their movie wrapped shooting faster and earlier,I expect the plot to be simpler, and it certainly has fewer tie-ins with other movies from its studio.

Here it is, as it was shown at San Diego Comic Con:

So here we can see Asher Angel as Billy Batson finding his new foster home, Jack Dylan Grazer as his new foster-brother, Freddy, Mark Strong as Sivana, the super-powered (!) villain, at least one transformation into Zachary Levy as the hero, and a silhouetted Djimon Hounsou as the Wizard.

Now, of course, there were bunches of "reaction" and "explanation" videos posted immediately, as YouTube's "clickbait" dynamic was activated. Here are some of them:

...and here some folks even did "mashups" of a bunch of them!

 

I don't have time to watch and comment on all of them now, but I am keeping them here as a repository so that you and I can view them at our leisure later, especially after the movie comes out, and we can judge how right or wrong these reactions turned out to be!

If you have a reaction to this trailer, either  in video or text, please post it in the "comments" section, share this post, and subscribe to the Captain Marvel Culture blog!

SHAZAM FOOTAGE LEAKED! (I think...really?)

Well, the production has wrapped, and no doubt the various editors and special effects people are  working their little tails off trying to make the new "SHAZAM!" movie as awesome as possible, and of course the PR department is working every bit as hard to make everyone THINK that it is as awesome as possible.

So we got these pictures so far...

 

...which are essentially confirming what has been said about what this movie will be since the beginning: "Big" with superheroes (though there was one article that did not catch the "Big" was a movie title and presented the quotation as "...it's big with superheroes.").

Sidenote: The director, David F. Sandberg, used Instagram to post cryptic pictures allegedly symbolizing the progress of his Journey as he researched and planned for the making of this movie. I wonder if the Coke cans in these pictures (below) had anything to to with the above scene?

As a further sidenote, I must have missed this particular picture on Sandberg's Instagram. I was watching them the bet that I could, and was very heartened by the presence of Fawcett publications and action figures of the classic Captain Marvel. It made me think that maybe this movie would be about the original Captain Marvel, and not this New 52 character named "Shazam." Had I seen the picture above, I would have known those hopes were futile.

In any event, that oft-repeated line, "'Big' with superheroes," kept on hitting me. The original Captain MArvel,. of which I am a fan, was not a boy in a grown-up's body, but ever since Roy Thomas created "SHAZAM! A New Beginning" after the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in 1986, that has been the dominant interpretation of the hero. Sometimes it has led to some interesting dramatic story twists and turns, like in DC's "Underworld Unleashed" miniseries, "JSA" series from the 1990's, and "Young Justice" animated series.

But all too often it has been played for goofy humor, starting with Keith Giffen's and Kevin McGuire's post-"Crisis" "Justice League."

So now. apparently, someone showed some preview footage of the new movie in Ukraine, and thanks to the magic of the Internet (through which Asher Angel, who plays Billy Batson shared it), we can see it!

https://twitter.com/sonofjody/status/1018852311441895424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1018852311441895424&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.comicbookmovie.com%2Fshazam%2Fshazam-battles-doctor-sivana-in-this-leaked-footage-from-the-dc-movie-a162139

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE HERO IS DOING THE "BIG" PIANO DANCE!

So that's why they have been harping on that early Tom Hanks movie! So that when people saw this scene they would get the pop-culture reference!

But I really think that is a cheap joke. Aside from the fact that F.A.O. Schwartz, the world-famous toy store tin which the original scene took place, is not there any more, I will positively cringe if I have to watch the Zachary Levy as the hero dancing on a floor piano in a toy store!

I was ready to accept that this character had a different name from the original hero. He was different enough that it was better that he not be named "Captain Marvel." But now...I just don't know if I can take it.

In any event, here is the rest of the footage...

https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/1018853705469136898

So we see the Cola scene, some characters flying through the air as if hurled by the Force, and Mark Strong as Sivana catching the hero's punch. We also see flashes of the original New 52 story that introduced this character.

This all confirms that this is an adaptation of the New 52 story, with Sivana's role enlarged to make up for the lack of Black Adam. It's all too brief to tell for sure how good it will look in its final form., andin the end, this film willbe judged on its execution.

Hurry up and watch these clips, because Asher says he will be taking them down soon!

You can see the full article from ComicBookMovie here.

So what do you think of these clips? Post your impressions below and subscribe to this blog for the most insightful updates on the many different Captain Marvels!

ASHER ANGEL as BILLY BATSON in "SHAZAM!" (Real News!)

So the casting rumors, speculation, suggestions, etc fall away one by one as another casting choice for DC's "Shazam!" movie is revealed!

As reported in Variety, Asher Angel, Best known in his young career as Jonah Beck in the TV series "Andi Mack," will be playing the young boy who transforms into the World's Mightiest Mortal by saying the magic word, "SHAZAM!"

Not being familiar with his work, I cannot critique the choice on the basis of his acting chops, but he does look the part. Of course, Billy Batson was drawn generically enough that almost any young boy with black hair could look the part (in fact, my trans-gender ex-girlfriend went through a phase in his transition in which he could have played the role - ahem - marvelously).

At age 15, Asher is, of course, the first actual minor playing this role in a live-action film or TV show. The previous two actors, Frankie Coghlan, Jr in "The Adventures of Captain Marvel" and Michael Gray in "Shazam!" were both securely in their 20's when they landed the role.

One thing that will be interesting to me is if Asher and Zachary Levi (who is playing the hero) will be able to sync up their performances to create a believable illusion of the same person inhabiting both bodies. Of course, back in the original Fawcett comics from 1940 - 1953 and the DC comics from 1973 - 1986 Billy Batson and Captain Marvel had separate personalities, though they shared memories. They would refer to each other in the third person, buy each other Christmas presents, and even had an argument at least once! It was only when Roy Thomas created "Shazam! A New Beginning" that the concept of Captain Marvel as a boy in a grown-up's body began. This was after the Crisis on infinite Earths (one of the first big company-wide crossover events in comics) re-ordered the original DC multiverse and put Captain Marvel and Superman on the same planet.

While Roy Thomas played this dynamic for drama, the new Justice League series that came out that year played int for laughs, having Captain Marvel suggest singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" as the team grew bored during a long flight, for instance. His juvenility led to him being underestimated in his value to the team, and he left after just a few issues.

Though DC dropped the ball on a continuing series with the World's Mightiest Mortal (a topic for another time), Jerry Ordway picked it up and re-booted the character in 1994 in "The Power Of Shazam!" graphic noel and ongoing series. He maintained the boy-as-adult-hero paradigm, balancing drama and humor. From that point there was going back. The Ordway version became the version that DC maintained until they began the New 52 in 2012. Now the default assumption is of the paradigm is "Big" as a superhero, and every appearance of the character follows that theme.

Several animated cartoon movies and series have done well with that in the balance of comedy and drama, but to me, it is not what the character was originally created to be. The wish fulfillment is that when you say a magic word, you can transform into a grownup! Your mind changes so you can think grown-up thought, handle grown-up situations. It's sort of like "Being John Malkovitch" as a superhero. You exist inside the mind and body of a mighty superhero, sharing experiences and memories, but having the time of your life on not being psychologically tortured like Roy Thomas' invention of Rick Jones and Captain Mar-Vell.

But the director, David F. Sandberg has come out and said that it will be "Big" with superheroes, so I guess that is what we are going to see.

One interesting thing about "Andi Mack" that I just discovered in researching this post is that it is "the first series on The Disney Channel to depict a character coming out as gay" (ABC News). The character of Cyrus on the show, played by Joshua Rush, came out just last month, breaking ground for the youth-oriented, family-friendly network. This adds to a surprisingly long list of connections between the name of Captain Marvel and LGBT culture. This list goes all the way back to the "Adventures of Captain Marvel" 1941 movie serial, in which the role of the wizard Shazam was played by Nigel deBrulier, who was involved in an allegedly all-gay silent film production of Oscar Wilde's Salome, a clip of which appeared in the documentary "Before Stonewall"

One last interesting thing about this casting choice. Just as the hero will be played by a man who shares my initials, ZL, the actor playing Billy Batson shares a birthday with me: September 6! This movie is becoming more and more entwined with me by the week!

And here is the now-traditional "clickbait roundup" of web articles carrying this news...
Collider 
Deadline
comicbook.com
bleedingcool 
Slash/Film
The Hollywood Reporter
MovieWeb
The A.V. Club
cinelinx
Den of Geek
Movie Pilot
Nerd Reactor
Heroic Hollywood
The Wrap
Screen Rant